21 music festivals coming to Southern California in 2022

Hangout Music Festival Delivers To The Gulf Coast Of Alabama

Hangout Fest on the beach in Gulf Shore, AL

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Quick, what comes to mind when you hear about the National Seashore running along the Gulf Coast of Alabama? Is it deluxe buildings lining a wide white sand beach? Endless dining options? Vast areas in which parklands intersect waterways, sand dunes and foliage? This seems like a a full service menu of vacation options which remains a mystery to much of the country.

Hangout Fest main stage

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Hangout Fest is shining a spotlight on Alabama's Gulf Shore beaches. This three day festival, which just took place from May 19 – 21, 2023 has the bones of every weekend festival: multiple stages, diverse musical options, plentiful food and beverage choices. While at first glance this seems to be a template model of a music festival, there is much more beneath the surface.

Much of this is due to the carefully planning of Reeves Price and his team. Price was the subject of this previous Forbes story:

MORE FROM FORBESBUKU Music + Art Project Returns To New Orleans March 25th And 26thBy Eric Fuller

Life's a beach at Hangout Fest

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Hangout Fest is curated. There are differentiations in almost every element of this event which should be noted. First, and most notable, the festival itself takes on the public beach in Gulf Shores. The festival is literally on the sand. The two main stages are set at opposite ends of the beach. There are several others scattered throughout the grounds. Attendance is capped at 35,000 which is manageable. There are enough people there for the crowd to be full and fun, but not so many that it becomes perpetually congested.

The lineup was interesting because of its variety. Headliners ranged from Red Hot Chili Peppers, Paramore, and Lil Nas X to Skrillex, SZA and Calvin Harris. There was also a substantial underbill filled with talent such as AJR, Yung Gravy, Noah Kahan, Coin and Sabrina Carpenter all playing in broad daylight. Fans had the ability to hold to an EDM experience, one based upon guitar rock or just take the survey of the broad variety of musical choices available over the three days. Meanwhile, the layout provided the opportunity to just sit in the sand between sets with your beverage of choice and a lovely view of the Gulf of Mexico.

Just holding this event on the beach in late spring sets up a feeling unlike that at many other festivals. The water is omnipresent, and as a result the ambiance itself costars with the music. Hangout Fest has built a model which is accommodative to a broad audience. Those who purchased General Admission tickets had access to half of the area in front of the main stage, and even more access to the secondary and tertiary stages. The main stage VIP area had a big viewing section which included lounge chairs and soaking pools. For those who wanted an even more curated experience, there was a Super VIP section built alongside the VIP space with shade, hammocks, bar tables, gourmet food and an open bar. And, for the cost no object corporate players, there were "cabanas" built as a second story on top of the Super VIP section in which someone could host up to thirty people with a clear view to the stage over the heads of all the fans below.

The view from Super VIP across to the main stage

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This curated differentiation, both in the artists on stages and the manner in which people experienced the festival mixed together groups whose exuberance over being there, no matter in which fashion, built excitement across the entire ecosystem. It precluded the moneyed set from holding a garden party with music as background and engaged the young people who scraped up the costs of attendance.

This melding of patrons from across the economic spectrum help build excitement, as each group's reactions inspired the overall vibe of the festival. Hype builds hype. As the cheers grew louder from the GA sections, the VIP groups paid more attention to the stages. The net result was the crowd swell built into a single crowd rather than a one which was segmented by economic capacity. It is that energy of a crowd which builds affinity, all enhanced by the beachside environment and cooperative weather in late May.

Sunset on the Alabama shore

Eric Fuller

For those like me who had never been to Alabama's Gulf shore, there were other surprises as well. The Florabama bar at the state line between Florida and Alabama is well known. What's less known is that just a few miles further along the Alabama coast are wetlands, parklands, sand dunes, Sea Turtle hatching grounds, recreational boating, luxury beach front hotels and a broad spectrum of restaurants. Voyagers restaurant at the Perdido Beach resort is owned by the same person who has Cain Five wines in Napa. Their chef Brody Olive is terrific. It's a Napa level dining experience on Orange Beach, AL. That's the revelation of the Gulf coast: it offers recreational opportunities which are not well known beyond the region, but they should be.

Florabama

Eric Fuller

The other surprise was the diversity of accommodations available nearby. The beaches were lined with hotels and condominiums which were located between the "Florabama" state line and the Hangout Fest a few miles further along the AL shore line. There were multi tower luxury buildings such as the Caribe Resort, three buildings which were well situated to accommodate short term stays, along with hotels at all price points. It was all very well organized to accommodate an influx of visitors and disburse them amongst the many recreational options there. Get there next year for Hangout Fest 2024. You'll leave with a new favorite travel option.

Garden & Gun Ranks This Alabama Music Festival Among Most 'travel-worthy' In South

Garden & Gun magazine has picked seven "Travel-Worthy Southern Music Festivals," and exactly one Alabama event made that short list.

Even Bonnaroo isn't included, although in fairness, this spring-themed list cuts off with Kentucky's Railbird Music Festival on June 1-2, a couple of weeks before Bonnaroo. Maybe they're saving that for the summer list.

At any rate, it's an eclectic collection of experiences, including the bluegrass-heavy Merlefest in North Carolina, the massive New Orleans Jazz & Heritage Festival, the four-year-old event known as Bear Shadow … and the Hangout Music Festival coming up May 17-19 in Gulf Shores.

Zach Bryan is among the headliners of the 2024 Hangout Music Fest.Trevor Pavlik/Warner Records

"This oceanfront rager is as much a beach vacation as it is a music marathon," says the G&G summary, which goes on to praise the event as "A stalwart on the Southern festival scene with its eclectic lineups and laid-back vibes." "This year we're especially excited about headliner Zach Bryan and rising country star Jaime Wyatt," it adds.

Hangout 2024 also features Lana Del Rey and ODESZA as headliners. Tickets start at $359 plus fees and are available through www.Hangoutmusicfest.Com. For continuing coverage, visit www.Al.Com/hangout.

For the full list, see gardenandgun.Com.

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Artists To Watch At Hangout Music Festival: The Griswolds, Lizzo And More

Australian indie rockers The Griswolds are among ten acts Pandora has selected as artists to watch... [+] for the upcoming Hangout Music Festival. Here performing onstage during day 3 of the Firefly Music Festival on June 20, 2015 in Dover, Delaware. (Photo by Ilya S. Savenok/Getty Images for Firefly)

As the bohemian wistfulness of Coachella weekends fade into distant memory, summer festival season marches into full swing. Next up is Hangout fest, the three-day music festival (plus one bonus Thursday for those with the extra ticket) in Gulf Shores, Alabama. Think beach hammocks, craft beer tents, even a quickie wedding chapel, and a lineup rife with big-ticket artists like The Weeknd, Calvin Harris, Ellie Goulding, Alabama Shakes, and more.

But these household names aren't the only reason to make your way to Hangout. Of the more than 70 or so acts that are scheduled to perform at the festival, roughly 30 of them can be considered "undiscovered" or "promising" artists, according to the taxonomy of Next Big Sound. This means there is a lot of opportunity to discover new and awesome music at the festival, and Pandora has taken a data-driven approach to determining the 10 artists you really need to keep an eye on. The artists are chosen based on growth on Pandora, as well as high engagement amongst fans across other networks.

The Griswolds for instance, are an Australian indie rock band that have slowly but surely been making inroads in the US over the last few years. Since releasing their debut studio album Be Impressive in 2014, they've already toured alongside fan favorites like Walk the Moon and Passion Pit. Just a few hundred short of 50,000 page likes on Facebook , the bands' numbers are definitely trending upwards. They're growing on Twitter , seeing a 250% increase in new followers added this past month. More than 800 new followers on Instagram during the same time is close to three times what they added in March, and on Vevo they are seeing roughly 40,000 video views each month. Pandora is their biggest channel, where they have seen more than 7 million spins in total coming in at a clip of about 60,000 a week.

Another act you're going to want to keep your eye on is Lizzo. The rapper from Minnesota already has a few albums under her belt, and a few hours ago she released the video for her latest track "Good As Hell" on Youtube. She added 875 new page likes on Facebook last month, a jump of 120% compared to the month prior. She now counts more than 15,000 followers on Instagram, and north of 12,000 on Twitter. Last month, she spun roughly 35,000 times on Pandora, a 220% increase from the month prior, and one fifth of her total count. It seems Lizzo has hit the tipping point and is on the rise fast.

Also on Pandora's data-driven list of Artists to Watch (in no particular order) are Bully, The Revivalists, MAGIC MAN, Jai Wolf, POWERS, Moon Taxi, and The Struts. If you're lucky enough to be on the beaches of Gulf Shores with a festival ticket in hand, I'd recommend checking them out.

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