Maryland Renaissance Festival: Tickets are sold out but there may be some hope
Good morrow, lords and ladies, wouldst thou like to go to the Maryland Renaissance Festival ?
Alas, tickets are sold out. Though the Ren Fest season continues until late October, there are no more tickets available as of Sept. 18. It's the earliest the festival has sold out, officials said.
The Maryland Renaissance Festival, now in its 48th season, is held in the woods in Crownsville each year.
The beloved event features iconic food including smoked turkey legs, craft vendors, performances and games, live jousting and an interactive story line that progresses each year through the life of Henry VIII.
Tickets and multi-day passes were sold exclusively online, and have been since 2021. Multi-day tickets became available for sale on July 5, and sold out in under three hours, festival president Jules Smith said.
"October usually sells out when we enter October, that's when the coolest weather is and people are eager to enjoy the festival and the outdoor, autumnal atmosphere," Smith said.
Smith declined to share how many total tickets the festival sold this year.
If existing ticket holders submit for a refund, those tickets will go up for re-sale on the Maryland Renaissance Festival website. However, there is no wait list.
Getting a ticket that's refunded is a first-come, first-serve race that could involve checking multiple dates repeatedly.
If you go to the ticket calendar and see a green check mark, the website says, that means tickets are available. But if you click through on that date and see it says tickets are not, in fact, available, that means they are in another customer's cart.
There's a 15 minute time limit for customers, though, so if a customer does not complete the process or abandons their cart, the tickets will become available again.
Tickets can only be refunded up to 5 p.m. on the Thursday before the weekend — so don't bother trying to buy a last minute ticket for Saturday on a Friday evening.
And be careful. The Maryland Renaissance Festival said online that several guests have arrived to the festival with fake tickets in recent weeks, and that websites claiming to resale tickets have not provided any information verifying the tickets.
Last year, tickets to the Renaissance Festival sold out around Sept. 23, Smith said. People could be buying tickets earlier than before because refunds are not costly, Smith said. If people buy tickets in August for an October weekend, but then the weather turns bad, or they have other plans, refunding a ticket comes with only small fees.
The festival is held over 9 weekends and 19 total days, which was from Aug. 24-Oct. 20 this year. Smith said that window was best for weather, and for the festival's workforce, which is made up in large part of high school and college students. So have they considered expanding the Ren Fest season?
"I wouldn't want to push my luck," Smith said.
