September is the Gulf Coast’s hinge month. Football season is in full swing, temperatures begin, at least in theory, to ease, and the festival calendar starts to fill again after the slow, sweltering weeks of late summer. The September 2024 events lineup was a good example, featuring Pensacola’s oldest craft beer festival, a LEGO fan convention in Mobile, a Black Jacket Symphony tribute to Elton John, a Warren Haynes Band concert and the Pensacola Seafood Festival. This look back revisits those five highlights and the long list of other events that crowded the month, including a burst of festivals timed around the autumn equinox.
The equinox fell on September 22 that year, and several communities scheduled festivals for Saturday, September 21, making that weekend one of the busiest of the fall.
Emerald Coast Beer Festival at Seville Quarter
The month opened September 6 with the 28th Annual Emerald Coast Beer Festival at Seville Quarter in Pensacola. Billed as Pensacola’s largest and oldest craft beer tasting event, the festival featured breweries from around the Gulf Coast, including more than 50 microbreweries and another 50 to 100 represented through distributors, along with more than 10 homebrew clubs pouring their own creations.
Live music, food trucks and other activities rounded out the evening. VIP and general admission tickets were offered, with general admission sold online.
The festival’s longevity mirrors the growth of craft brewing along the Gulf Coast. When the event began in the 1990s, craft beer was a niche interest. Today, Pensacola, Mobile and the Baldwin County communities in between are home to a wide range of independent breweries and taprooms. Seville Quarter, a complex of bars, restaurants and event spaces in Pensacola’s historic district, has long been a hub for this kind of gathering.
Mobile Brick Convention
On September 7 and 8, the Brick Convention LEGO fan event came to the Mobile Convention Center. The family event brought hands-on LEGO building activities together with displays and entertainment for children of all ages and builders of every skill level.
A portion of the proceeds from each Brick Convention goes to Creations for Charity, an all-volunteer nonprofit that buys new LEGO sets for underprivileged children around the world during the holidays. Tickets were offered for multiple sessions.
Events like this one appeal across generations. Children come to build, while adult fans, who often call themselves AFOLs, bring elaborate creations and share techniques. The Mobile Convention Center’s riverfront location downtown made it an easy destination for families from both Mobile and Baldwin counties.
Black Jacket Symphony’s “Madman Across the Water”
On Friday, September 13, the Black Jacket Symphony returned to the Saenger Theatre in Mobile to perform Elton John’s “Madman Across the Water” in its entirety. Over roughly a decade, the group had performed more than 40 classic rock albums for more than a million fans across the country. Its lineup of hand-picked musicians rotates depending on the album, with the goal of reproducing every sonic detail.
“Madman Across the Water,” released in 1971, includes some of Elton John’s most beloved songs, among them “Tiny Dancer” and “Levon.” Hearing it performed front to back gives audiences a chance to experience the album as a complete work rather than a collection of radio hits. The group took the same show to Pensacola’s Saenger Theatre the following month.
Warren Haynes Band in Pensacola
On September 24, the Warren Haynes Band brought its Million Voices Whisper Tour to the Saenger Theatre in Pensacola. Haynes, a Grammy Award-winning vocalist, songwriter, producer and guitarist, is best known as frontman of Gov’t Mule and for his long tenure with the Allman Brothers Band.
The tour supported the band’s new studio album, “Million Voices Whisper.” Joining Haynes on vocals and guitar were Gov’t Mule bassist Kevin Scott, two-time Grammy-winning drummer Terence Higgins and saxophonist Greg Osby. Keyboardist John Medeski, best known as one-third of the trio Medeski, Martin and Wood, returned for the fall tour.
For Gulf Coast fans of Southern rock and jam music, an evening with Haynes and a lineup of that caliber in a historic theater was one of the musical highlights of the fall.
Pensacola Seafood Festival
The month closed September 27 through 29 with the 2024 Pensacola Seafood Festival in downtown Pensacola. Hosted by Fiesta Pensacola, the free community event offered seafood, live music by the bay all weekend and the backdrop of the city’s historic downtown.
The festival is also one of the largest arts and crafts fairs in Northwest Florida, with more than 150 artisans and craftspeople traveling from around the country to take part. Fiesta Pensacola, the nonprofit behind several of the city’s signature celebrations, has made the Seafood Festival a centerpiece of its calendar, drawing large crowds downtown each fall.
A Packed Equinox Weekend and More
Beyond the five headliners, September 2024 offered a long list of events, many clustered around the equinox weekend:
- 11th Annual Bulls on the Beach at the Flora-Bama on Perdido Key, September 5 through 7
- Charter Boat Billfish Tournament at Zeke’s Landing in Orange Beach, September 5 through 7
- We Got Soul at the Saenger Theatre in Mobile, September 6
- Brett Robinson Alabama Coastal Triathlon in Gulf Shores, September 7
- Turtle Fest 2024 at the Gulf State Park Beach Pavilion in Gulf Shores, September 14
- Arti Gras at Flambeaux Hall in Mobile, September 21
- Fall Festival at the Ben May Main Library in Mobile, September 21
- Son of a Sailor Fest in Cathedral Square in Mobile, September 21
- 37th Annual Alabama Coastal Cleanup in Fairhope, September 21
- South Alabama Comic Con at the Mobile Convention Center, September 21 and 22
- Mobile Symphony Orchestra at the Saenger Theatre, September 21 and 22
- The Great Bellingrath Harvest at Bellingrath Gardens in Theodore, September 21 through October 31
The Alabama Coastal Cleanup, held each September for decades, is one of the state’s largest volunteer environmental efforts, sending residents to beaches, waterways and marshes to collect litter. And the Great Bellingrath Harvest, launching that September, became a new fall tradition that returned in 2025.
Planning for Future Septembers
Many of these events recur, though dates and lineups change and September remains the heart of hurricane season, which can force postponements. Anyone planning to attend a future beer festival, Brick Convention, Seafood Festival or equinox weekend event should confirm details with organizers. As the September 2024 calendar showed, the early fall is one of the most rewarding times of year to explore the coast.