Why do we not include Ham evening concerts in the Week, Day and Weekend ticket?
The Sidmouth Folk Festival has a very diverse programme and our audiences have quite varied tastes. If we included the Ham evenings in the Week, Day and Weekend ticket we would need to significantly increase the price. This could deter our audience members who want to attend other parts of the festival and not the Ham concerts. The All in One ticket makes it possible for those who are attracted to the Ham evening concerts to buy a ticket that includes them all, whilst leaving others to buy a week ticket without having to pay for events they are not likely to attend.
Including the Ham evening concerts in Week, Day and Weekend tickets would also make it very difficult to judge how many event tickets we could sell for each night as we couldn’t anticipate how many ticket holders would want to attend. We also rely on the income from event tickets and All in One tickets in order to fund the evening headliners.
What are Pre-Festival Concerts and why are they are not included in the Week ticket?
These shows are planned particularly for people from the region, local residents and early festival arrivals and so are separately ticketed. If they were included in the Week or All in One ticket it would increase the price of that ticket and penalise those who can’t join us in time.
These concerts often attract people not familiar with the festival and serve as an introduction to the festival. The income from these events also enables us to fund some valuable parts of the programme that are not financially self-sufficient.
Why does the ticket system seem complicated?
We do try to keep it simple but are determined to make the festival accessible to all, particularly those who have not previously attended programmed events and can’t commit to a full week. Being a town based festival with multiple venues we are not able to put a fence around the site and charge one entry price like many other festivals. We offer a range of ticket options to let audiences engage with the festival at whichever level suits them.
