If you and your family are regulars at Scarby.... no more Adult season passes

[Nicolas-Antoine]

Prepare to buy a FOF pass for every family member over 12 or pay 32 bucks a weekend per person.... those are your only options. Scarby had done away with the Adult season pass.

Scarborough 2011 Tickets Go Sale on November 15!

Just in time for the Holidays, tickets for the 31st annual Scarborough Renaissance Festival will be available on line at SRFestival.com. These advance tickets represent the best value offered for the 2011 Festival.

We will be making some changes to our ticket program this year. After years of declining Season Pass sales, the Board of Scarborough Renaissance Festival is eliminating the Adult Season Pass for 2011. A new Discount Weekend Pass will be available only at the gate in 2011. For those of you that are frequent attendees, the Festival is retaining both the Friend of the Faire memberships and Child's Season Passes.

"For 18 years we have been the only major Texas renaissance festival to offer any type of Season Pass, and demand for our regular Season Pass has dropped significantly. The introduction of the Discount Weekend Pass and our retention of the Friend of the Faire memberships and Child's Season Pass at 2010 prices continue to offer tremendous value for our guests". - Coy Sevier, General Manager"

More details about the new tickets will be forthcoming in future newsletters.

We are already deep into the plans for the 2011 Scarborough Renaissance Festival and there are a few things that we want to pass along.

- The Crown Stage is being completely rebuilt and it looks amazing.

- .Don Juan and Miguel will alternate shows on the Crown Stage with weekly visiting headline acts.(More about that in the future.)

- Adam Crack and his Firewhip show will be back this year.

- And, of course, as the headline says, tickets go on sale on November 15.

As always, comments and suggestions are welcome. You may email marketing @SRFestival.com, or drop us a note at PO Box 538, Waxahachie, TX 75168 Attn: Marketing.

[BryanPopp]

FN sucks. My wife and I get season passes every year. Being in Houston I could never justify the FOF pass. Hotel, gas, food. The Season pass rocked it allowed us a little more cash to visit more that 1 or 2 weekends.
Win one for the lawyers.

[Merlin the Elder]

I don't quite understand what difference it makes how many season passes they sell, as long as they are selling some. Nimue and I have been buying FoF passes for the past several years (I'm not sure when they started them) even though some years it's only a single trip down from central Arkansas. We always have another couple with us and the comps cover them, as long as we do one of the first couple of weekends. So that offsets the cost of the FoF passes somewhat.

There seems to have been rather significant ticket price changes in the past few years though. That may be what's killing the season pass sales. I think the first time I bought FoF they were only $60...could be wrong. When traveling later in the season, we would get a block of group tickets, but they closed the gap on that a couple years back as well.

I won't say that Scarby is cheap, but so far, it hasn't disappointed us. I hope that holds.

[DonaCatalina]

Yeah, this makes no sense to me unless they are trying to recoup the cost of their new photo-pass equipment all at once instead of amortizing it.
We have been buying FOF for years just because of the water and convenient parking, but I think doing away with adult season passes will discourage a lot of people who might otherwise come out more than one or two weekends. I know the economy probably knocked out a lot of marginal pass buyers, but this isn't going to make sales any better if people had already budgeted based on buying a pass.
I would really like to see how the Royal Guard and the Queen's Own are going to deal with this. I know quite a few of them were season pass buyers.

[Tukaram]

I think the original letter must have read more like this

Due to the recent price increase in FoF tickets, and the unrelated issue of families buying 1 FoF ticket with 1 Season Pass, we will be no longer selling the Season Pass. Families are more than welcome to buy each adult a FoF pass however...

[Merlin the Elder]

I guess it's all relative. For those close by, it's a significant increase in cost. For folks such as us with a long travel, it's the least significant cost item of the trip. The difference between season ticket and FoF is less than the cost of the gas to get there. But I'm not trying to minimize the impact it has on you, believe me!  We came down twice for faire in 2010, plus once for FoF preview.

It would seem to me that Scarborough would be trying to maximize their fan-base, not driving any of them them away, which this might do.  Any Scarborough administrators here that might could help us understand?

[cyberrennie]

So the kids stay at 20. That's a pretty good deal. And if you want to go very day and buy the early FOF at 115, that's about 7 bucks a day. If you go once every weekend, it's 14 bucks. That's not considering the parking and other stuff.

If you go 4 times a year, that's 2 weekend passes, or $64, about what a season pass was. It's not great, but at least we don't have to buy 17 tickets if we go more often. If it was a money deal, wouldn't they offer more than 2000 FOF?

[Nicolas-Antoine]

So the kids stay at 20. That's a pretty good deal. And if you want to go very day and buy the early FOF at 115, that's about 7 bucks a day. If you go once every weekend, it's 14 bucks. That's not considering the parking and other stuff.

If you go 4 times a year, that's 2 weekend passes, or $64, about what a season pass was. It's not great, but at least we don't have to buy 17 tickets if we go more often. If it was a money deal, wouldn't they offer more than 2000 FOF?

Well you need to take your math and multiply it by every member of the family that attends regularly that is over 12. That cost will add up quickly. What was the old Adult pass? Around $70. Assuming you do pre-order at $115, that's $45 extra. For a couple, $230, that's $90 more out of pocket, family of three, $345, that's $135 more out of pocket, family of four, $460 - $180 more out of pocket. Yeah if you spread it out over all the weekends you can make it sound better per day per person... but Scarby doesn't do installment plans. You have to pay it all up front. Would you rather pay $460 for 4 FOF passes or $280 for 4 season passes.

Second my girlfriend does come only around 4 times a year... however it's only on Saturdays so the new weekend pass is worthless. Instead of buying her the usual Adult pass for $70, it's either a $115 FOF pass which would be $28.74/visit... or pay daily at $22-24/visit...  With the Adult pass it was 17.50/visit. It may not sound like much - but multiply that by all the other people in the same situation and that's a lot of extra $$$ in Scarby's pocket.

As far as the 2000 limit - I honestly don't think they ever came close to that number. And if it were to ever exceed I would wager they would gladly would bump the limit and take your money.

Yes Scarby is a business and obviously Scarby is targeting the single weekenders for the big income. Just the folks that come out once or twice a year, eat and drink until they explode, and shell out money left and right for the kids. But for us playtrons I think they are just trying to get as much off of us as possible since they know we are frugal out there. And we have to be in order to afford to be out there every weekend along with gas, garb, and other cost. And as I said yes they are a business, but personally I think this is a slap in the playtrons faces. Scarby has a fantastic cast but it's the playtrons that fill the faire with colorful characters. Imagine what a weekend out there would look like if not a single playtron showed up. No Royal Guard, no Scottish Guard, no Musketeers, no Pirate Crews. I can tell you that would be one short parade.

Well there's my 2 cents - take it as you please.

[raevyncait]

A couple of years back, when I emailed a protest about the 80% or whatever increase it was that first year that FOF were over $100/person, the response I received was:
You can be PART OF THE MAGIC by purchasing a FOF, or you can choose the regular season pass and NOT be part of the magic. 

I think that Management has lost sight of the fact that indeed, ALL OF US who are out there regularly, on multiple weekends, often every single day of the run, are indeed part of the magic for the people who either 1. are mundanes who come out once a year, or 2. visit from other festivals because they've heard wonderful things about our Faire, AND not only do we not expect to be paid for adding to the magic, we actually PAY THEM TO DO BE ABLE TO DO IT.

[Hercules]

I'm not impressed with the folks that run this faire. I've been talking with a few vendors at TRF who also do Scarborough. Or I should say USED to do Scarborough. Several vendors feel they're being forced out because of the way they're being treated. One of these vendors is an anchor and has been there since Scarborough opened.

Forcing veteran vendors out and now forcing FoF passes down loyal customers throats?  Not good business.

Me thinks I'll take my business to Sherwood instead. I've been hearing nice things about those folks.     

[raevyncait]

A petition has been started.  I have no idea how much good it will do, if any at all, but it does at least present a unified response location for anyone who wants to sign it.

http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/scarborough_seasons_tickets/

[Merlin the Elder]

I really don't want to lay blame at anyone's feet without hearing both sides. Let's face it, these are tough times for a LOT of people, and everyone has to cover their own arses. The wisdom of how you cover it is the question here. We're too far away to be there every weekend like some of you, so we don't see everything that goes on. In all the years we've been coming though, I can't lodge any complaints about the management. Questions have always been answered promptly, when they came up, and we've just not had any real issues.

In the past couple of years, we have heard some mutterings and grumblings. One long-time act was upset because of a reduced faire schedule, and one vendor we talked to left us with the impression that they preferred TRF. This same vendor had told us years ago that they were going to stop doing TRF because of problems there. They are, in fact, still (back?) at TRF. So, wherever you go, there you are.

I would hate to see anything happen to Scarby. It's the closest major faire to us, and traveling 8 hours each way to other faires is probably not going to happen very often. I'm sure the Scarby cast members on this forum are having to bite their tongue to keep from saying anything, pro or con. Totally understandable. If there are any management people here, can you give us some insight?

[Drac]

We got the email a couple days ago and my wife wrote in but hasn't heard answer back yet.

We fall into the 1 FoF and 1 adult category but we don't need 2 10% discounts (unless they let us add them together), 2 parking passes or the two extra free tickets.

Drac

[Lady Kett]

I consider this a real shame. I can fully accept the business is business line, truly I can in this crappy economy we have. But I think back to our first regular season pass and can tell you that if it were not a option at the time, we may not have kept coming back that first year. Which lead to our FOF passes. Now that we've dragged our prodigal daughter into the mix, I really would not be planning an FOF pass for her, but an adult season pass would have been a slam-dunk. In her case, Scarby probably would have made out a bit more with some scattered attendance but I would know I wouldn't have to run to the gate to buy tickets in the morning. No way I'm going for a 3rd FOF pass. I'm kind of with Drac on this - 2 FOF passes is me supporting my local Faire but I really don't need 2 (let alone 3!), just 1.

Makes me sad. I will adapt as necessary but I can still be sad. I can't believe they had so few adult season passes that it's completely un-worthwhile to them.

[Merlin the Elder]

I'm trying to be pragmatic here, maybe some devil's advocacy, and I'll likely stir up a $hite$torm...I'm not sure that in the grand scheme of things the difference in the price between season pass and FoF is worth the anger. We all resist price increases, yeah, I'm hearing that, but for someone who is going every day of the faire, it's the cost of an extra beer a week; if you only make half of the open days, it'll cost you a beer a day. For those not willing to buy an extra beer, insert some other item...

I've been told that the SAPA folks are pretty much just volunteers, and about all of the perks they get is admission. Some, if not most, of them pay for their own garb. That pretty much takes any complaint about cost increases out of my mouth. I'm also less affected by the price increase. We buy a pair of FoF each year anyway. Since we live 400 miles away, we can only do one or two weekends a year. We prefer the cooler weekends at the beginning of faire, and a couple of folks that come with us use the comp tickets.  This past year, we were there for closing weekend. It was so hot, we practically lived at the FoF pavilions. In our case, we made the FoF pay off.

I'm not trying to start an argument here. Just offering a view from another angle.