GULF SHORES — Love Our Locals (LOL) Festival kicked off its first year this weekend with 13 bands and almost 20 vendors, all local to the coastal area.

Elizabeth Hood decided to put together LOL Fest after moving to the Alabama Gulf Coast from Texas and discovering she enjoyed the "culture of this whole coastal area." When Hood spoke to Gulf Coast Media a few days before the festival, ticket sales were "creeping up to 200 total."

An attendee said there were 30 people who stayed for the final band's entire performance on Friday night. By the end of the night on Friday, only three vendors stayed the entire festival: a beer tent, coffee trailer and a food vendor.

Day-pass tickets were originally $30 but dropped to $20 on the second day of the festival after some complaints of ticket prices. By Sunday, tickets were $10 and then dropped to $5 per family before people could enter for free, according to a volunteer at LOL Fest.

Hood was not able to provide a final headcount before press deadline.

At her main company, Fiestas 4 You, Hood works as a music coordinator matching local bands to special events like weddings, bridal showers and business gatherings. After finding her own favorites on the music scene, she found it hard to regularly see some of the bands perform. LOL Fest — with "music, food and beer" as the main components — was her solution.

"I felt shorted musically, and I thought it'd be really awesome if we had a music event where we have back-to-back bands," Hood said.

While the event was originally planned to be a one-day event, it grew into a three-day festival with the support of local businesses and the Coastal Alabama Business Chamber. Hood's idea, which she had in May of last year, started to become a reality. In last year's July, she started asking bands if they'd like to be a part of it. By October, she was looking for a venue and reaching out to vendors. She considered putting off the festival for one year, holding it in 2026, but she decided against it as it started to "come together so fast."

"Besides parenting, this is the hardest thing I've done in my life," Hood said on organizing LOL Fest in less than a year. "It was a marathon for me. I'd never put on a festival before."

Hood said she hopes for this to become an annual event with "more involvement" next year. There is already a waiting list for bands, she said, and she plans to start securing vendors soon. She said the way the festival came together was "truly a God thing."

"This is meant to be for this community, I think it truly is destined to be for this community because of how easy things have come together when normally they shouldn't," Hood said.

Hood said she hopes the message of "locals support locals" holds true for those who attended, specifically "the next set of leaders for our community," or the younger Gulf Coast residents. She also was glad to give local bands an opportunity to play at a festival and have something "they can tell their grandkids someday."

With LOL Fest, Hood said she sees herself as the "baby sister to Shrimp Fest." With one stage at the moment, she "aspires to be like" the Shrimp Festival and potentially grow to more stages, especially with the Coastal Chamber's guidance and support.

"The Coastal Chamber has helped a lot with plans and creating something out of my vision," Hood said. "They're good people and they stand behind this vision, which is a good thing for community."

By "putting on a one-woman show" in bringing together the festival, she said she hoped to inspire locals to have a strong work ethic whether you have support or not.

"(LOL Fest) is the result of pure determination and hard work," Hood said. "If I can model it for anyone else, especially females, in the area to say it can get done. ... You have to believe in yourself first and find out what is your motivation and are you willing to give everything for it. I was either going to get run out of town or this was going to be successful."