Overview The AB Beach Music Festival is a free Saturday of Carolina beach music at The Circle, on the oceanfront boardwalk in Atlantic Beach, North Carolina, where five bands play from 11 in the morning to 6 at night and people bring their own coolers. The Town of Atlantic Beach puts it on each May. The 2024 edition was the tenth and 2026 the twelfth. On site The bands play one after another; in 2025 each had an hour, with a half hour between sets. Food trucks sell on site. Coolers are allowed as long as there is no glass, and pets are not. Parking at The Circle is paid and limited, so most people ride the town's free shuttles, which run 9:30 a.m. to 6:30 p.m. from Carteret Community College and the Atlantic Beach Town Park and take one folding chair per rider and coolers up to 32 quarts. Sponsors watch from a VIP tent with shade, a buffet lunch and drinks, and the top levels hold reserved canopy spots in the front row. The show goes on rain or shine. Audience Crystal Coast tourism describes a family crowd that comes to shag on the oceanfront, and the shuttle rules show how they arrive: with a chair and a cooler, for the day. Talent and Influencers The bill is the Carolina beach music circuit and it holds steady year to year. The Band of Oz, Jim Quick and Coastline, Gary Lowder and Smokin' Hot, the I-42 Band and the Mighty Saints of Soul played in 2025 and again in 2026. The Embers played the tenth anniversary in 2024 and headlined the sponsors' preview party in 2026. Brand presence A sponsorship runs across three nights of festival week: a Wednesday preview party at The Dunes Club, a Friday sponsors' reception at Memories Beach Club, then armbands for the VIP tent on the Saturday. Every level includes tickets to all three, sponsor T-shirts and an "Official Sponsor" poster. Upper levels put a logo on the festival T-shirt and the festival's marketing and advertising and take a front-row canopy; lower levels carry the company name instead.