Early Bird Folk Festival Tickets Sell Out in Less Than 20 Minutes

Newport Folk Festival hopefuls flooded Ticketmaster to claim $159 pre-sale tickets for three days of music at Fort Adams. Many, if not most, were shut out.

Early Bird tickets, which could only be purchased with a special promo code, went on sale at 10 a.m. Tuesday morning and were sold out by 10:15 a.m.

Three-day, two-day and single day Friday tickets are now available. No code is needed.

The Newport Folk Festival’s Facebook page thanked festival-goers for their support and tweeted “BTW we will be 'scrubbing' all early bird sales to check for duplicate orders and any suspicious scalping activity.”

Their Facebook page also replied to one customer who was unable to purchase Early Bird tickets, saying, " We understand your frustration but we can't control the demand. We are so grateful that there is a demand because it means you all support what we do as a non-profit."

Many Facebook users expressed frustration and anger over not being able to purchase tickets. More than 120 users commented on the Newport Folk Fest Facebook page about buying tickets or apparently experiencing technical trouble on Ticketmaster. 

Eve Anderson: Disappointed. We are loyal fans and were ready to buy tix at 10am.... It seems a little arbitrary

Peter Waldman: Very poorly done. I was on there at 10:05 and no tickets came up.

Randle Scott Gonzalez: SOOOOO UNFAIR, why consider it a donation for the festival for extra 20 We are all deserved a fair chance for tickets for the early bird! so unfair!

Were you able to purchase tickets to the Newport Folk Festival? Or, were you one of the ones who received an error message? Tell us in the comment section below!