Maryland Renaissance Festival ticket-seekers find long waitlists
Fans of the Maryland Renaissance Festival swarmed online Tuesday when tickets for this month's event became available, only to encounter long wait times.
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.
Crews are hard at work preparing Revel Grove in Crownsville for the start of the 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."
Waiting to buy RenFest tickets
Some festival fans trying to get tickets Tuesday, were shocked by the online wait times.
Rockstar, who has been going to the Renaissance Festival since she was a child and now brings her own children, said 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.
RenFest tickets on resale websites
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," Smith said. "With all the dates available, there's no reason why anybody should pay a higher fee on another site."
Smith says the online waitlist is how their ticketing system prevents their website from crashing.
The system also weeds out bots from the list.
Watch out for RenFest scammers
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 often work 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.
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."