Sand in My Boots is coming back to the beaches of Gulf Shores in May 2027, organizers announced Monday, ending a one-year hiatus for the country music festival that sold out its first run in record time. The exact festival dates haven't been set, and organizers have not said whether Morgan Wallen, the artist whose 2025 curatorial stamp launched the event, will headline again.
According to Taste of Country, organizers confirmed the festival's return on the same day, with a full 2027 lineup expected to be revealed in November. The outlet reports that while Wallen served as the inaugural event's curator and namesake reference in 2025, there's been no confirmation yet on whether he'll perform at the 2027 edition. As AL.com notes, the festival traditionally lands on the last weekend before Memorial Day weekend, though this time around even that detail has yet to be nailed down publicly.
A proposed contract extension reviewed by 1819 News had listed May 20-23, 2027 as the festival's dates, but Taste of Country's more recent reporting says the exact dates have not been announced — a discrepancy that hasn't been resolved publicly as of this writing.
Why the Festival Skipped 2026 Entirely
Gulf Shores never got a 2026 edition of either the festival's original Hangout Music Fest format or its country-leaning Sand in My Boots rebrand. Mayor Robert Craft announced in December that the 2026 event would not take place, according to AL.com's earlier reporting. Gulf Coast Media reported that organizers had little time to find enough artists after the contract was approved. Festival organizers themselves said they hadn't expected to bring the event back for 2026 at all.
That pause came even though the 2025 Sand in My Boots festival had been a runaway success just months earlier. The event sold out its 40,000 tickets almost instantly, per the same AL.com report, and it marked the final event covered under a 10-year franchise agreement between the city and the festival's producers — a deal that Gulf Shores and the producers extended for two more years in the summer of 2025.
A Format Built on Country, With Room for Crossover
Sand in My Boots launched in 2025 as a rebrand of the long-running Hangout Music Fest, which last took place in its original form in Gulf Shores in 2024, Taste of Country reports. The new version used largely the same production and site plan as its predecessor but shifted the lineup heavily toward country, while still folding in rock, rap and other genres. Headliners included Wallen alongside Post Malone — the pop star turned successful country-album artist — plus Brooks & Dunn, HARDY and Riley Green, according to Taste of Country.
AL.com also identified T-Pain, The War on Drugs and Future Islands among the non-country acts on a bill that mixed country culture with a broader variety of sounds. Riley Green, an Alabama native, appeared alongside fellow Alabama native Ella Langley, whose breakout duet with Green, “You Look Like You Love Me,” had become a crossover hit; Langley later released the record-setting single “Choosin' Texas.”
The Dollars Behind the Decision
City officials have been candid about why they wanted the Sand in My Boots format to stick around. Gulf Shores officials expressed a strong preference in 2025 for organizers to keep catering to that audience when planning future events, and for good reason: the festival contributed $2.2 million in direct revenue to the city's budget and generated an estimated $70 million in local economic impact, according to Gulf Coast Media.
Separate figures reported by AL.com put the festival's direct tax and fee contribution to the city at almost $2 million, alongside an 85% to 90% weekend lodging occupancy rate. The outlet's reporting attributed some of that financial bump to higher ticket prices and an older crowd that spent more on food and drinks compared with past Hangout Fest crowds. One Gulf Shores business owner told the outlet that, from a business standpoint, revenue definitely increased during the 2025 run.
Residents Weigh In on the Crowd
City officials and members of the public broadly favored the Sand in My Boots format when weighing a contract extension, AL.com reported in December, with business owners and others describing the crowd as more affluent and better-behaved than the audience that had turned out for Hangout Fest in years past. Separately, WEAR TV reported that Gulf Shores officials said the 2025 event brought in more revenue and more overnight visitors than the format it replaced.
Demographic data cited by AL.com showed the 2025 crowd skewed two-thirds female and 51% married, with nearly half coming from households averaging at least $100,000 in income. The Gulf Shores City Council had separately sought public input on a potential contract extension for the festival, according to a city of Gulf Shores notice, reflecting how closely local leaders have tied the event's future to resident and business feedback.
For now, Gulf Shores beachgoers and country fans alike are left waiting on two big unknowns: the festival's precise dates next May, and whether the man whose name launched the whole thing will be back on stage.
