“You know that I carry my notions of friendship pretty high…”
Northanger Abbey
Become a Friend of the Jane Austen Festival and support the Festival Team all year round.
Receive regular newsletters revealing tantalising behind-the-scenes news as we prepare for September 2026, receive priority booking for the September Festival events*, and receive various other perks and discounts announced throughout 2026.
Festival Friend Membership runs from 1st January to 31st December - 2026 Membership price £36
Festival Friend Memberships are limited in number so a swift purchase is advised.
Jane Austen levels of diligence, amendments and re-workings abound here at festival HQ and you will notice that this year we have made some small but essential adjustments to our Festival Friend Membership. This is not to say our levels of friendship have been diluted; we still carry our notions of friendship very high!
The Jane Austen Festival team value the support of our Festival Friends immensely throughout the year, your annual Festival Friend Membership fee helps to support the continuation of the festival, enabling us to deliver all the balls, events and workshops we know you love. However, alongside making sure our Friends’ expectations can be met, we want to be able to welcome as many of the wide-ranging Jane Austen fandom as possible to Bath.
Many of our most popular events, including balls, theatrical performances and smaller workshops, sell out incredibly quickly and priority booking* is a small way of saying thank you for your support, boosting your chance of securing these ahead of general sales.
For 2026 Festival Friend Membership Benefits include:
Priority booking* for Jane Austen Festival September 2026 Balls.
Regency Balls: up to 2 tickets per member.
How to redeem: when you buy a Festival Friend Membership, you will receive an unique Ball Tickets code [eg: BALL26.....] to use specifically for booking September Festival Ball tickets. There is a limit of 2 Ball tickets per member code. You can choose how you wish to use the code by either: Booking two tickets to one Regency ball - OR - Booking two single tickets to two separate Regency balls
Priority booking* for Jane Austen Festival 2026 September events.
All other festival events: up to 10 tickets per member.
How to redeem: on purchasing a Festival Friend Membership, you will receive a second unique JAF Events code [eg: JAF26.....] to use when booking Festival events tickets. This code will have a limit of 10 uses across all Jane Austen Festival September events (excluding the Regency Balls & any events not sold via the Jane Austen Festival ticketing partner FareHarbor). Again, you choose how you wish to use these. For example, you could either book 10 tickets to a single event, or you could spread the 10 code uses across multiple different events.
Festival Friends receive a seven-day priority booking period before general ticket sales begin.
During this priority booking* period, you can use your unique codes to buy tickets (with the stated restrictions on ticket purchases applied). At the end of the seven-day period, all Festival tickets will go on general sale and Festival Friends can, of course, book as many of the remaining Festival ball and events tickets as they like.
Regular newsletters with a behind-the-scenes look at how the 2026 Festival is shaping up, as well as crucial dates and information to help you plan for all your festival essential details.
Purchasing Festival Friend Membership as a Gift:
If you are purchasing a Festival Friend Membership as a gift for someone else, you must have their name & email address ready when purchasing.
The person purchasing the membership will receive an email confirmation within 24 hours confirming their purchase of Festival Friend Membership. If the Festival Friend Membership is a surprise, make sure you DO NOT put the gift recipient’s email address into the payment page.
DO put the gift recipient’s email address into the “Festival Friend Membership Newsletter email recipient” box. The first Festival Friend email newsletter will be sent in January 2026 to this email address.
Additional ticket changes to look out for in 2026:
Our ever-loyal Festival Friends were such eager ticket-bookers in 2025, that many of our events did not even make it to general sales. For 2026 we will be ensuring a minimum of 25% tickets for each event will be held back for general ticket sales.
We will be splitting our ticket sales into two ticket drops: Regency ball tickets will go on sale on one date, with all other Jane Austen Festival events going on sale a few weeks later. Both ticket drops will have a priority booking period of one week for Festival Friends.
In 2026, our festival attendees will receive their QR codes for events 48 hours before each event. This will enable our ticket holders to receive their QR codes in the order in which they need to use them.
*Priority booking does not guarantee tickets, as they are sold on a first-come-first-serve basis.
Please double check all email addresses when inputting them onto the website; if you’re in a rush, copy and paste your email where possible to avoid typing mistakes!
