Now then! We can confirm that tickets for Shambala 2023 will go on sale at 1pm sharp on Wednesday 12th October.
We want you all to have as smooth as ticket buying process as possible – so please do read this whole email in it’s entirety to stop you having any annoying snags on the day.
Adult ticket prices vary from between £199 (for a tier 1 sustainable travel package) to £259 (for a tier 3 general entry ticket) + booking fees. There will be instalment plan tickets available at every tier, and for every sustainable travel package, to enable you to spread the cost of your tickets over several payments, should you wish.
At every tier, sustainable travel packages (coach, bike or rail) are £20 cheaper than their general entry equivalent, as a big old thank you for choosing to ditch your car and travel sustainably.
WHAT’S NEW: BIRMINGHAM ONE-DAYER BIKE RIDES & RAIL TRAVELLER PACKAGES..
We’ve got some new bits and bobs for you lot this year…
Cyclists, take note! After looking at the demand for the different Red Fox Cyclist tours last year, we’ve decided to kiss goodbye to the Brighton ride, and replace it with a cheeky little one-dayer from Birmingham! This ride is pretty flat, through some properly lush countryside, and takes just 6 hours, with a stop for a tasty lunch! This opens up the Red Fox Cycle Tours to those that love a cycle but were a wee bit intimidated by the bigguns – plus gives us a departure point that a lot of you travel through on route to Shambala anyway, making it pretty handy! Read more about what to expect from this bike ride and see if it’s a bit of you, here.
Rail Traveller packages: As per our last email, we’re introducing trail packages to our smorgasbord of sustainable travel options. As with our coach packages and cycling packages, these are priced £20 cheaper than general entry tickets. Travel by rail to either Market Harborough station or Long Buckby* station, where our shuttle buses will take you to site. You’ll need to present a valid used rail ticket for that day, at the dedicated Rail Traveller entrance on site.
*Adding a shuttle bus from Long Buckby train station opens up train travel for western railways, which is handy as traditionally it’s been a bit of a faff to get to Market Harborough for folks coming from the North/North West/West/South West.
We’ll also have all our usual coach packages from Brighton, Birmingham, Bristol, Manchester, London and Sheffield (which you can read all about in advance, HERE) and Red Fox Cyclist Packages from London, Bristol and Sheffield, alongside the new Birmingham ride. Read all about all our Red Fox tours here.
As ever, if you book onto a sustainable travel package, you MUST arrive by the mode of transport specified in your package for your tickets to be valid for entry – no ifs, no buts! See our terms and conditions for more detail.
RECYCLING BONDS
We have increased the cost of the returnable recycling deposit this year to £20 per order. This is to encourage more people to engage with this system and bring their recycling back to the exchanges.
However, unlike a lot of events, our deposit is per order, not per adult ticket, so you’ll only pay one £20 deposit, no matter how many tickets are in your order, and your group only have to return one bag of rubbish between you, at the end of the event, to be able to reclaim your deposit (or a goodie bag of festival merch, whilst stocks last).
We’ll also ensure our Recycling Exchange points and their opening hours are super clearly advertised, so everybody knows where (and when) to drop off their recycling.
CAMPER VAN PASSES
This year, we’re doing away with the ‘blue’ or ‘yellow’ campervan passes we’ve historically offered, and simplifying things somewhat. We’ll be offering 4 campervan pass types:
- Family Camper Van Pitch (a 6m x 7m pitch, which will be located near the family area and family facilities)
- Large Family Camper Van Pitch (a 6m x 10m pitch, for larger vans, which will be located near the family area and family facilities)
- Regular Camper Van Pitch (a 6m x 7m pitch)
- Large Camper Van Pitch (a 6m x 10m pitch, for larger vans)
If you’re keen to be pitched alongside your pals, your best bet is to arrive at the same time, as pitches will be allocated as folk arrive.
*IMPORTANT*: TOP TIPS FOR A SMOOTH BOOKING PROCESS!
We appreciate the following is wordy, but please do wrap your eyes and brains around it in advance of ticket launch day, it really will help.
- The TicketSellers remain our only legitimate ticketing agent. Only tickets bought directly through The TicketSellers are valid for entry. Avoid getting scammed – do not buy from any other source. Refunds are available up to 4 weeks ahead of the event on all ticket types except instalment tickets. Tickets will be available via our website, and on The TicketSellers website.
- If you have never purchased tickets through The TicketSellers before, save precious time in advance by creating your account in advance of ticket release – you can do that HERE.
- If you have booked through The TicketSellers before, we’d strongly recommend just double checking you have your log in details to hand, in good time – to save you any forgotten-password dramas on the day. You can do that HERE.
- Make sure you have your debit/credit card ready (and a spare if possible – some banks decline one-off payments) that matches your billing address – and be ready to receive text messages / log into your banking apps to approve the purchase.
- We require names, email address and a phone number for all adults you are booking tickets for, plus a name and emergency contact for all U18s (it is acceptable for parents / guardians on site to use their own). You can change the names and contact details on each ticket at any time before the event by logging into your Ticket Sellers account.
- As part of our ongoing commitment to diversity and inclusivity, there are some additional questions around ethnicity, gender and sexuality. You can choose not to answer these, but it’s helpful to us to have some statistics, to help us monitor our progress year on year as we work to make Shambala more inclusive.
- Choose your tickets and click ‘Reserve Tickets’ at the bottom of the page – your tickets aren’t reserved until they’re in your basket!! You then have 24 minutes to complete the purchase before they disappear.
- It is usually only the adult entry tickets and campervan passes that have really high demand, so you may want to concentrate on bagging those first so you don’t waste precious seconds, and logging back in later for any less high-demand extras, like car park passes and kids tickets.
- Tickets are spread across 3 ‘tiers’ this year. The lower the tier, the cheaper the ticket price, as a reward for early booking, so select the lowest tier you can.
- Extras and add ons such as glamping will go on sale separately, in the new year, and we’ll make sure we email all ticket buyers with a heads up once they go live.
PAY IT FORWARD: SHARE THE LOVE WHEN BOOKING YOUR TICKETS…
At Shambala this year, we introduced our new ‘Pay It Forward: Share The Love‘ initiative where you lovely people were given the option to add a donation when getting your rounds in at our bars. We’re buzzing to say that over £10,000 has now been raised and ringfenced to grant full festival access packages to folks on low incomes in the local area. THANK YOU.
We have also now built in an option on our 2023 ticket page, to donate what you can (if you can afford to help) whilst booking your tickets. There’s no pressure or obligation, but even if you can just spare a pound, it all adds up and enables us to make our Adventures in Utopia more inclusive, by introducing Shambala to people who would not normally be able to consider a festival due to financial pressures.
REMEMBER – TICKETS GO ON SALE AT 1PM SHARP ON WEDS 12TH OCTOBER, SO SET THOSE ALARMS!
Big love.
Sham HQ xx