The sixth annual Hangout Music Fest kicks off this afternoon on the beaches of Gulf Shores.
The three-day music festival features more than 80 performances by some of the biggest music names in the world, like Beck, the Foo Fighters, My Morning Jacket and plenty more.
Forty thousand people are expected to head to Gulf Shores for the event, which means a big economic boom for the community. Grant Brown is the Recreation and Cultural Affairs Director for the City of Gulf Shores.
He says Auburn University did an economic impact study in 2013, and they were surprised at just HOW big the bump was…
“Direct impact to the community is a thirty one million dollar number in 2013. Which is huge. The condominiums typically, this time of the year, are at a 25 to 30 percent occupancy. With the music festival in place, there’s
99 percent occupancy. So we’ve created a Fourth of July weekend before Memorial Day.”
Brown says the minute the festival ends, his staff will be hard at work getting the beach ready for next week, which is Memorial Day weekend.
A fundraiser for the victims of the recent earthquakes in Nepal is taking place in Birmingham this evening.
The Alabama Nepalese Association and members of Birmingham's Nepalese community are looking for donations to help those impacted in their home country. The first earthquake last month measured 7.8 on the Richter scale. It killed more than 8,000 people in Nepal and injured eighteen thousand. Prashant* Shrestha* is a system analyst and programmer at the University of Alabama in Birmingham…
“We have lost friends, people lost their houses. We lost our favorite landmarks, monuments; which are very close to our hearts. And in wake of this tragedy, we Nepalese in Birmingham are now united to fulfill our duty and started this campaign; Alabama Unites for Nepal. The main objective of our fundraiser is to help victims and to raise awareness of the recent earthquake disaster in Nepal.”
The charity event will be at “The Edge of Chaos” on U-A-B’s campus tonight at 5:30 p.m.