Festival Blast - The Hangout Festival 2011

Festival Blast - The Hangout Festival 2011
by Fil Manley
posted June 1, 2011

The 2011 Hangout Music Festival wrapped last Sunday night in Gulf Shores, Ala., headlined by Widespread Panic, Foo Fighters, Matisyahu, The Black Keys, The Flaming Lips, and was closed by Paul Simon, who played a phenomenal two-hour set.

The folks at Huka Entertainment managed to come up with a diverse and interesting lineup. Second to that, the sound production was excellent given the dynamics of running 5 stages close together, with the ocean on one side and buildings on the other. The music was clear, bright, well mixed and the promoters chose as a venue one of the most beautiful spots ever to be graced by hippie feet.

I have to say thanks to Huka and the publicists, all of whom couldn’t have been nicer or more professional. I’m saying that because this is probably the most critical article I’ve ever written. There are plenty of slick pieces written about how great the music is. I love the music, but festivals aren’t just about music, they’re a communal experience and an experiment. I had high hopes for The Hangout, and I was more disillusioned than disappointed.

The complaint I heard more than any other was that The Hangout was oversold. To my eye, it seemed a bit overcrowded, although security and medical personnel had easy access to every part of the grounds. Given the type of environment, the sand and heat, it would have been a much better experience had it been less crowded.

The real problem was the Boom Boom Stage. This tent was home to some super popular acts including Girl Talk, Bassnectar and Pretty Lights, and was about half the size it needed to be. These acts would have been much better suited to either the Hangout or Surf Styles stages and I assume they were placed in the tent to contain the noise.

I wasn’t able to attend the Hangout’s first year, but its sophomore year was a vexing mix of the fantastic and the inane blended into one big (seafood) gumbo.

If you were able to afford The Hangout’s VIP passes, you were fortunate indeed. VIP included exclusive areas for relaxing, hot food, open bars serving beer and vodka drinks, as well as a private entrance, a pool and private viewing areas for all stages.

The VIP sections by the main stages were very close, offering fantastic views of some of the headliners.

How-To sandblast a trailer

Because we bought our trailer used and it was formerly a 1981 (camping) travel trailer it had some signs of wear and tear; namely rust. Structurally it is as sound as the day it rolled off the assembly line. But because it spent some time on the east coast the salinity of the air made it prematurely age and the paint/primer at some point gave way to rust spots and “age spots.” Luckily we own both an air compressor and a sandblaster – the very tools needed to prepare the trailer for primer.

Sandblasting is a general term used to describe the act of propelling very fine bits of material (play sand in this case) at high-velocity to clean a surface. A sandblasting setup usually consists of three different parts: the abrasive itself, an air compressor (seen below), and a blaster nozzle. By launching small bits of abrasive at the surface at a high speed, all imperfections are knocked loose and can then be easily washed off, creating an incredibly smooth surface upon which to lay the new layer of paint. Before we can do that though (which will come much later, I imagine) we need to prime. Why? Primer spray (in this case we used Krylon grey primer) stops rust and prevents corrosion. So last week Crystal started sandblasting the tongue of the trailer. We were a bit naive and I say this only to prepare others for sandblasting. It is a long, tedious process and if you don’t have the right tools (which I am not entirely convinced we are not in this category) it can be somewhat painstaking. The key ingredient to sandblasting is, of course, the sand. But running a very, very, close second is the compressed air. Now, our air compressor which is decades old and is only a 30 Gallon, 120/240 Volt, 5.3 CFM model, could only hold enough compression for about 5-6 minutes of intense sandblasting. Then we had to wait 2-3 minutes for the air to build back up. At that point we could then go back to blasting. Now, as one might hope, the blasting is not a large scale process. In fact, because the nozzle is only 1/8 inch in diameter you can only blast about 1/4 of an inch at a time. So in 5 minutes you could cover about a 8 square inch area, if lucky. Considering our trailer is roughly 34,560 sq. inches it is not easy to understand why after about 17 collective hours of sandblasting we only managed to do about 1/3 of the trailer, including the tongue area.

I have to admit that it was a bit discouraging. But when we stopped to think of the purchase price of the trailer, the extra sq. ft. it offered us, and the time we had to do the job (remember, we aren’t moving in tomorrow), it didn’t seem quite so bad. By about 5pm we had primed the sandblasted part and were enjoying a cold one on the back porch.

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