Hangout Festival: Get Ready For Fun, Fun, Fun In The Sun

GULF SHORES, Alabama -- If you've never been to a music festival on the beach, well, there's nothing like it. Sure, you'll see a handful of bikinis and flip flops at other fests, but at Alabama's Hangout Festival not only are those items ubiquitous, they're practically required uniforms. No shirt, no shoes, no problem ya'll!

The three-day blowout doesn't official begin until Friday, but the Thursday's (May 16) warm up was a great primer on how the weekend was going to go down. Between the twinkling Ferris wheel on the white sand beach, the terrifying drop zone ride and a nest of comfy hammocks set up as a seaside chill zone, Hangout is unlike any festival you've ever been to.

"It's my second year here and I love it," said Giovanni Vidana, 20, who hails from nearby Silver Hill, Alabama and came prepared with an oversized Camelbak, a spray bottle to wet down his fellow festival goers, gauzy white scarf and a portable GoPro camera strapped to his forehead. "You're down here on the beach, this becomes a different world, it's amazing ... I love this environment." He and his friend, Taylor Mcelroy, were psyched for sets over the weekend by Macklemore & Ryan Lewis, Kings of Leon, Kendrick Lamar, Slightly Stoopid, Ellie Goulding and Stevie Wonder. Thursday's preview brought a mix of Hayes Carll's sweet honky tonkin' cover of Tom Waits' "I Don't Want to Grow Up" and the location-appropriate new tune, "One Bed, Two Girls and Three Bottles of Wine," mixed with the nighttime thunder of Dillon Francis, who got the crowd at the Boom Boom tent moving with a mix of old school hip-hop blended into Bollywood beats, Miami bass and ecstatic house.

"It seems to be all shapes and sizes out here," said the typically high and lonesome troubadour Carll, who tried to keep things upbeat for the late afternoon crowd. Though the two main stages set up on the beach weren't in effect yet, the sight of palm trees lit up with Christmas lights swaying in the Gulf breeze after the sun went down was a preview of the one-of-a-kind setting fans would be treated to starting Friday. We'll be live-streaming performances throughout the weekend on our official Hangout hub, bringing you interviews, behind-the-scenes access and on-demand performances from all your favorite artists on MTV.com, VH1.com, CMT.com and LogoTV.com. Highlights from Hangout 2013, which features sets from the Shins, Jim James, Bassnectar, the Roots, Imagine Dragons and Yeah Yeah Yeahs will also air on MTV, VH1, CMT, MTV2, MTV Hits, MTV Jams, VH1 Classic and Palladia.