Gulf Shores city officials have released the schedule for the 2026 edition of Sunset Series, the city’s free beachfront concert series that draws residents and visitors to the Town Green at Gulf Place for three evenings of live music, local vendors and family activities as summer winds down.
The series will run on three Thursdays this fall — September 3, September 10 and September 17 — at the Town Green located at 101 Gulf Shores Parkway. Admission is free. On the first two dates, a DJ will open the evening from 5 to 6 p.m., followed by a live band from 6 to 8 p.m. Starting September 17, the music will run straight through from 5 to 8 p.m.
Gulf Place sits at the heart of the city’s public beachfront, where State Highway 182 meets the white-sand shoreline that anchors Baldwin County’s tourism economy. The Town Green there has become the city’s go-to stage for free community programming, from holiday events to summer movie nights, and the Sunset Series has grown into one of its signature September traditions.
What to Expect at the Town Green
Beyond the music, each Sunset Series evening will feature booths from local community vendors selling goods that showcase Gulf Shores-area artists and makers. The city is also planning free activities for children and families, including face painting and a balloon artist.
Organizers are encouraging attendees to bring lawn chairs and settle in along the Town Green as the sun sets over the Gulf Coast’s white-sand beaches. Food trucks will be on site for anyone wanting a meal, and the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber will operate a beverage stand for guests of all ages.
Anyone with questions about the series can reach the city’s Special Events Division at 251-968-1171. The city recommends arriving early on concert nights, when parking at Gulf Place fills quickly and nearby lots along the beachfront fill up with evening visitors.
September 3: Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band
The series opens with Chubby Carrier & The Bayou Swamp Band, a Louisiana act steeped in Zydeco tradition. Carrier is a third-generation Zydeco musician in the Carrier family and has been performing the genre for 36 years.
He got his start on drums at age 8 in his father’s band before picking up the accordion at 14, and he formed his own band in 1989. Since then, the group has toured across the United States, Canada and Europe, playing festivals, fairs and music venues.
Carrier’s accolades include a 2010 Grammy Award for Best Zydeco or Cajun Music Album and induction into the Louisiana Music Hall of Fame in 2011. Zydeco — the accordion-and-washboard sound born in southwest Louisiana’s Creole communities — has long been a favorite on the Gulf Coast, where Mobile and Baldwin County audiences sit just across the state line from the genre’s heartland.
September 10: Spank The Monkey
The second Thursday brings Spank The Monkey, a high-energy rock band that has been performing since it emerged on the Louisiana music scene in 1995. Known for mixing covers from the 1990s and 2000s with original material, the band gained regional attention when its song “Sweet Daisy” spent three months as the most-requested track on 96.5 Planet Radio.
Spank The Monkey regularly plays venues and festivals stretching from Texas to Florida, making Gulf Shores a natural stop on a Gulf Coast circuit that runs from New Orleans through Biloxi, Mobile and the Panhandle beach towns. Cover-and-original party bands like this one are a staple of the region’s summer and shoulder-season event calendars, where audiences skew toward mixed crowds of locals and vacationers who want music they know alongside something new.
September 17: Frank Brown Songwriters Showcase
The final Sunset Series date serves as a preview of the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival, a long-running Gulf Coast tradition that celebrates original songwriting. The festival, named for the longtime owner of the Flora-Bama bar at the Alabama-Florida line, draws writers from Nashville and beyond to venues across the coast each November, and the Gulf Shores showcase gives September audiences an early taste.
The Wilson Brothers, made up of Alabama-born musicians and songwriters Chad and Kyle Wilson, will open the evening from 5 to 6 p.m. The duo has built a following touring extensively across the Southeast and internationally.
From 6 to 8 p.m., Nashville songwriter Craig Campbell and Gulf Coast favorite Johnny Hayes will take the stage together with their accompanists.
Campbell has written a string of country hits, including “Family Man,” “Fish,” “Keep Them Kisses Comin’,” “Outta My Head” and the gold-certified “Outskirts of Heaven.” He launched his own label, Grindstone Recordings, in 2020, and in 2023 he founded the Kenny Campbell Foundation in honor of his late father, an effort that has since raised more than $1 million for colorectal and colon cancer causes.
Johnny Hayes, an independent singer-songwriter from Mobile, is well known to Gulf Coast audiences. He reached the top 24 on NBC’s “The Voice” in 2017 and was named best male vocalist by the Flora-Bama in 2025. His rise from Gulf Coast bars to national television made him one of the region’s most closely followed homegrown acts, and his return to the Gulf Shores stage closes the 2026 series with a hometown connection.
Pairing a Nashville hit-writer with a Gulf Coast headliner on the same bill mirrors the Frank Brown festival’s in-the-round spirit, where established songwriters and rising locals trade songs and stories in front of small crowds — a format that has made the November festival one of the coast’s most beloved music events.
City Leaders on the Series’ Return
“We are proud to continue our Sunset Series,” said Grant Brown, the City of Gulf Shores’ Recreation & Cultural Affairs Director. “Our city has put so much effort into making Gulf Place Public Beach a beautiful and relaxing spot for our residents and guests. We look forward to blending that beauty with free entertainment for everyone to enjoy.”
Brown’s recreation and cultural affairs office oversees the city’s calendar of public events throughout the year, from spring break-season programming to holiday celebrations, and the Sunset Series is among its most visible free offerings.
Why It Matters for Baldwin County
Sunset Series is one of several free public events the City of Gulf Shores hosts at Gulf Place each year to draw foot traffic to the Town Green during the shoulder season, when summer tourist crowds begin to thin but warm evenings still make outdoor gatherings comfortable.
For Baldwin County residents and the area’s steady stream of visitors, the series offers a no-cost way to enjoy live music and support small, local vendors while taking in sunset views over the Gulf of Mexico.
The addition of the Frank Brown Songwriters Showcase as the closing date also ties the series to one of the region’s signature music traditions, giving concertgoers an early look at performers connected to the broader Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival.
For local businesses — from the food trucks and vendors on the green to restaurants and shops nearby — each concert night delivers a crowd that might otherwise stay home in September, one of the slower months on Baldwin County’s tourism calendar. The city’s bet is that three free Thursdays of music will keep Gulf Place busy until the fall festival season takes over.
Residents planning to attend can expect a familiar rhythm at Gulf Place: arrive in late afternoon, set up chairs on the green, let the kids visit the face-painting and balloon tables, and watch the sun drop behind the concert stage as the evening bands take over. September evenings on the Alabama coast typically stay warm well past sunset, making the series one of the most comfortable outdoor events of the year.
The Town Green’s location also makes the concerts easy to fold into a beach evening. Gulf Place is the city’s main public beach access point, with parking, restrooms, pavilions and nearby shops all within walking distance, so families can combine an afternoon on the sand with an evening of music without moving their cars. The city advises concertgoers to use the Gulf Place lots and to arrive before the 5 p.m. start when possible.
With three Thursdays, three very different acts and a closing date that feeds directly into the Frank Brown International Songwriters Festival, the 2026 Sunset Series gives Baldwin County a compact season of free music that spans Louisiana zydeco, Gulf Coast rock and Nashville songwriting — all on a public green within sight of the surf.
Free admission is the series’ calling card, but it is also a statement about how Gulf Shores sees its public spaces. A city whose economy is built on tourism has invested in programming that its own residents can enjoy at no cost, in a spot that doubles as the community’s front porch. The Sunset Series, now a fixture of the September calendar, is expected to return again in 2027.