05-08-2025
Maryland Renaissance Festival fans find long waitlists trying to get tickets
Maryland Renaissance Festival fans swarmed to the internet as soon as tickets were available, only to find extremely long wait times.
Some festival tickets are popping up on resale sites, including StubHub, at triple the price.
Jules Smith, the President of the Maryland Renaissance Festival, told WJZ that while there is an uptick in interest this year, they are also doing everything they can to stop bots and scalpers from tainting the experience.
For more information on the Maryland Renaissance Festival, check out this website.
Crews are hard at work preparing Revel Grove for the start of the 2025 Maryland Renaissance Festival on August 23.
"They do an incredible job," said RenFest fan Angela Rockstar. "From the moment you walk in, you're transported into a totally different world."
Festival fans are already trying to get tickets, but they are shocked by the waitlist.
Rockstar, who has been going to the Renaissance Festival since she was a child and now brings her own children, told WJZ she has never seen such a long line for tickets. On her TikTok, she said that at one point, more than 28,000 people were ahead of her in line.
Rockstar says she's happy the festival is gaining popularity, but there's also concern about scalpers buying up tickets and reselling them on StubHub, where a normally $25 ticket is going for $142.
"They should only buy from our site and only accept our tickets," Renaissance Festival President Jules Smith said. "With all the dates available, there's no reason why anybody should pay a higher fee on another site."
Smith says the waitlist is how their ticketing system prevents their website from crashing.
The system also weeds out bots from the list.
Even after Maryland passed an anti-speculative ticketing law in 2024, scalpers are still scheming.
"There's a lot of regulation and requirements of the organization, but there's very little scalper enforcement happening," Smith said.
Smith says scalpers are mostly working from foreign countries and are difficult to track. The family-run festival does what it can by limiting how many tickets can be bought at a time.
He says that to avoid getting scammed with a fake ticket, fans should only buy a ticket from their website.
As for the waitlist, Rockstar says she will keep trying because she knows the wait is worth it.
"I want them to be a very huge success, and they deserve all the shine," Rockstar said. "They put on such a great show."
