Sea.Hear.Now Returns to Asbury Park for a Weekend Built Around the Shore

Sea.Hear.Now returns to the Asbury Park waterfront Sept. 19 and 20 with more than 25 artists across three stages, two days of professional surfing, an artist gallery, boardwalk parades and the kind of setting that makes it difficult to separate the festival from the city hosting it. Gates open at noon each day at North Beach, Bradley Park and Atlantic Park, with programming scheduled through 10:30 p.m.

The 2026 music bill is led by Mumford & Sons on Saturday and The Strokes on Sunday. The lineup also includes The Offspring, Goo Goo Dolls, Fontaines D.C., The War on Drugs, Moby, Chaka Khan, Pixies, The All-American Rejects, Ziggy Marley, Shaggy and Men at Work, among others. The festival is already sold out; the official site is directing people without tickets to its waitlist and verified resale options.

That lineup is enough to make Sea.Hear.Now a major Jersey Shore music weekend. It is not, however, what makes the event distinct. The beach is not scenery here. It is part of the programming.

Between the Surf and Sand stages, East Coast veterans and emerging surfers compete in a team contest while festival stages operate on either side of the action. The Transparent Clinch Gallery brings visual work by performing musicians into the weekend, with the possibility of impromptu performances around the gallery, while daily second-line parades move along the boardwalk. Food programming pulls from Jersey Shore staples as well as restaurants and vendors from New York and Philadelphia.

That mix goes back to the festival's origins. Photographer Danny Clinch, a founder and partner in Sea.Hear.Now, has long worked at the intersection of music, art and Asbury Park, and the festival launched in 2018 around the idea that those worlds could occupy the same waterfront rather than being treated as separate attractions. Eight years later, the concept has become durable enough that the event can sell out while still building much of its identity around things that happen away from the main stage.

The weekend now begins before the festival gates open. Sea.Hear.Now has added late-night and kickoff programming around Asbury Park, including a free Kickoff on Cookman on Sept. 18, plus club shows at the Stone Pony and Wonder Bar. Some of those late-night tickets are already sold out, extending the festival footprint into the city before the first official beach set begins.

For anyone attending, the practical advice is straightforward: expect a full waterfront festival rather than a concert with a beach behind it. The official guide recommends activating wristbands before arrival, and the festival has a current map, schedule and mobile app available for planning. The festival's Boardwalk Shop also opens in advance beginning Sept. 17, with a new festival-and-artist merchandise store operating on the beach during the weekend.

An advance can list the bands, the hours and the surf contest. The part that has to wait is what Asbury Park does with all of it once the gates open. Sea.Hear.Now works because the distance between stage, ocean, boardwalk, gallery and city is intentionally small. The real event is what happens in those transitions.

Event Details

SOURCE NOTES

• Sea.Hear.Now — official festival site
• Sea.Hear.Now — schedule
• Sea.Hear.Now — tickets / waitlist