The majority of our venues are accessible, see our venue accessibility page for more details. At the time of booking, please make a note in the notes section, so suitable arrangements can be made for your comfort. We can only guarantee that the walking tours marked as being step-free in the programme are suitable for buggies and wheelchairs. If in doubt do email the Festival office festival@janeausten.co.uk

This will vary from workshop to workshop, so we suggest reading your confirmation email very carefully!

We don’t allow this, because people in workshops are often learning skills for the first time and having people watching can be rather nerve-wracking. We’re sure you wouldn’t have wanted people standing around watching the first time you were learning to parallel-park a car!

Children are welcome at most events, except evening Balls where the minimum age is 14yrs old, and unless otherwise stated in an event description. Yes, even those who are rather young to be out in society! All under 18s must have their own ticket and be accompanied by an adult who also has a ticket. These tickets are sold at one rate only (we don’t have a child rate or a concession rate). Please note that the accompanying adult is responsible for the under 18 at all times during the event. For our Regency Balls under 14s are not permitted inside the event venue, and attendees aged 14 - 18 must have their own ticket an be accompanied by a Regency costumed adult who also has their own ticket.

Events where Regency outfits are mandatory are always marked in each event description in our programme. Regency costume is always mandatory for the Grand Regency Costumed Promenade on the first weekend of the festival, along with our Regency Balls. You need to provide your own costume, either by making your own, hiring one, or purchasing one. More information about creating your Regency outfit, or where to hire one, is available on our Regency clothing page.

Unfortunately the Festival is unable to provide changing facilities in event venues. It is also not possible to change in the venue toilets. Please arrive ready-dressed in your Regency finery for our Regency clothing mandatory events, otherwise you may not be permitted entrance into the event.

You are most welcome to wear Regency costume to all Jane Austen events unless otherwise stated.  Please pay close attention to any instructions given in the confirmation email, as it may be that you prefer not to wear a Regency costume for any events that might risk getting a costume dirty, or possibly damaged by wearing safety equipment over a costume.

No, the Jane Austen Festival is run out of a very small office, with no space of stock to provide dress-up from. It is the responsibility of our event participants to source their own Regency outfits to wear to events. There are several companies which do provide costume rental, please visit our Regency Clothing page for more information about how to source your own Regency outfit.

Regency dresses should reach to a length between your ankle and just off the floor. It is important for dance events, (especially if you are new to Regency dancing) that you are able to dance without having to use your hands to hold up your dress. Many dance moves require hands to be held with partners, so keeping them free of dress fabric, recording devices or other distractions will be exceedingly helpful to all your dancing companions. Similarly any dancer with a gorgeous long train on their dress will need to pin up the train for dancing. We like to avoid anyone tripping over anyone’s skirts on the dance floor!

By becoming a Festival Friend you will receive a host of different Jane Austen Festival benefits, including first access to find out about all our upcoming events, and priority booking for events; make sure you get that sought after sell out event ticket! Find out more on our Festival Friends page.

The Jane Austen Festival is a great place to find new friends- about one in ten Jane Austen Festival attendees are solo-travellers, and with ten days of events centred around Jane Austen you will never be short of shared interests to discuss.

Can I come to just one day at the Festival? There is no mandatory attendance for the Festival. People are welcome to come for just one day, a weekend, or the whole ten days. We would love for everyone to attend for the whole week, but there are plenty of interesting events going on so anytime is a good time to come.

The Jane Austen Festival takes place in the City of Bath, England. It is planned and run by a small dedicated team, on behalf of the Jane Austen Centre in Bath.

The Jane Austen Festival is an annual event held in Bath, UK, held during the 2nd week of September. It runs for 10 days featuring over 150 events centred around the author Jane Austen. 

The Summer Ball is run by The Jane Austen Festival and is a stand alone annual event taking place in June/July. For more information about this year’s Summer Ball click here.

Yes for most Festival events, please take as many photos as you like, outside photos of the big ensemble events are fine. Please post and tag The Jane Austen Festival on as many social media platforms as you can! We love to see everyone’s Festival adventures. We would just ask that you check before taking photos of individuals, and you need a parent/guardian’s permission before taking any photos of children. From 2026, we will be introducing some “switched off” style events where photography and modern 21st Century devices will be prohibited, but these will be clearly marked in our programme. The Jane Austen Festival does not allow press attendance or give out press passes for our indoor ticketed events. This also includes event participants who may wish to bring their own private photographer into events- this is not permitted.

Look at our Places to Stay  and Places to Eat and Drink  website pages for our special recommendations, however you may also like to look at the VisitBath website which is helpful for all aspects of planning a trip to Bath.

Each Festival programme has a venue map on the back, and most of our events are held in popular, signposted venues. On your ticket confirmation there will be a google maps link, and the what3words pinpoint location.

We do not allow spectators to watch participants of activity based events unless it has been specified in an event description. Attendees prefer to enjoy their workshop or activity without feeling like they have an audience.

If you lose any member of your group, or get lost yourself during the Festival, find one of our stewards and they will do their best to assist you. Bath is also well-served for helpful street maps, which look like colourful circles on large, black rectangular signs. Look out for these to help find your way! During the Promenade there will be a designated assembly point for any missing children or vulnerable adults to be accompanied to, where they will be assisted to locate the rest of their party. Please check your Promenade information emails for details of this.

Some Jane Austen Festival events start in Bath and visit the surrounding area, before returning to Bath. A few Jane Austen Festival events take place wholly in other nearby locations, sometimes with transport options suggested or provided. However, our main focus is Bath- as the place where Austen lived and set two of her novels- and the surrounding area.

The main Jane Austen Festival occurs in September, with two standalone Summer Balls and one Yuletide Ball in December. That tends to be enough to keep us occupied and out of mischief! We can’t recommend any other specific events, but our dear acquaintances at VisitBath have a lot of useful information. The Jane Austen Centre in Bath is open all year round, and the Jane Austen Experience in London is due to open in Spring 2026. Furthermore, there are plenty of other Jane Austen-related sights and events around the UK so we recommend having a Google!

Alas, no we cannot. We get a lot of requests of this nature, and if we help you with your project, we'd also have to help every school child worldwide with their Jane Austen essays; sadly, we simply don't have the resourcing to do this.

We are always looking for new fresh exciting events to add to our Festival programme. If you have an idea/act or would like to just generally help out and support the Jane Austen Festival please check out our Get Involved page.

There are several places around Bath that cater for luggage storage, please be aware we cannot store luggage during Festival events.

No, everyone is welcome whether you attend as an individual or in a group. The dance workshops and balls are a great place to make new acquaintances and friends!

The Jane Austen Dancers of Bath have provided a playlist of dance moves on YouTube . Watch these before the event, and practice them with some friends or family. You might also find it helpful to get your friends, family and colleagues to spot-check you on your left and right! There are also a number of Regency dancing groups within the UK and around the world, who run regular classes all year round. Hopefully with a bit of research you can find a dance group local to you, and start going to regular classes!

The number of tickets which can be booked in one transaction varies per event. Please check each event information (ahead of bookings opening) for details on this. For the majority of events our booking system limits the number of tickets for each transaction to 4 per event. This is to create a fairer system and allow more people the chance to purchase tickets to Jane Austen Festival events. If you need to purchase more than 4 tickets for an event simply complete the transaction payment and then return to the event to repeat the process and purchase more tickets. For events where groups want to sit together for dinner, there will always be the option when booking to inform us of the other names in your party. *For Festival Friends, please refer to the terms and conditions section of the Festival Friends website page for further details on the numbers of tickets you can book.

The Jane Austen Festival happens over ten days in Bath, with over 200 individually ticketed events in multiple venues. There is no need to buy one overall-ticket, simply buy tickets for the individual events you wish to attend

The Festival no longer posts out physical tickets, all our tickets are now e-tickets which are in the form of a downloadable QR code in your email confirmation. This is the same for UK and International visitors. If you cannot find a ticket confirmation in your regular email inbox, please check your spam/junk folder before emailing the Festival office to ask for it to be re-sent.

When events are not sold out we will sell tickets on the door from a minimum of 10 minutes before the event starts, however please be aware this only happens at limited events. Always check online to find out the most recent ticket availability for events.

If an event is sold out please add yourself to the waiting list for it. Please make sure to add UK working contact details. For most events, if the Jane Austen Festival has not contacted you 7 days prior to the first day of the Festival, (for the 2026 Jane Austen Festival this will be Friday 4th September 2026) then unfortunately no tickets have become available. For our events with larger ticket prices, we will consider managing ticket swaps closer to the event on an individual basis, but please understand this is not always possible, particularly where events including food are concerned. If we contact you regarding tickets and do not hear back within 24hrs, we will move onto the next person on the waiting list. *For all events marked sold out; this means the capacity of this event space is full, so we cannot and will not be releasing any further tickets for this event.

No, all tickets for Jane Austen Festival events are non refundable. If an event is sold out with a waiting list, you may contact the Festival if you would like to re-sell your ticket. However this MUST be done through the Festival, we will not accept any tickets for events that have been sold on separately. Any ticket returns must be done at least 7 days prior to the first day of the Festival beginning; (for the 2026 Jane Austen Festival this will be Friday 4th September 2026) If the Festival does manage to re-sell your ticket you will be refunded, minus the booking fee plus a 10% per ticket administrative charge. Customers will receive a full refund in case of event cancellation. No-shows will be charged the full price.

The Summer Balls are run by The Jane Austen Festival as two stand alone events taking place in May & June. They are not included in any priority booking, tickets for these events go straight to general sale. For more information about this year’s Summer Ball click here.

There are some drop-in activities perfect for Austen fans in Bath, which don’t require booking. We recommend the World Heritage Centre, where you can drop in for information on Bath as a Georgian Spa Town; the Georgian Garden; and Bath Central Library as a quiet place to sit down and enjoy a book! We also recommend you look at our Other Austen Activities in Bath page, which will be updated in the run-up to the Jane Austen Festival.

You’ll receive a confirmation email within 24 hours of purchasing a ticket. Please don’t panic if your confirmation email doesn’t arrive immediately, as at very busy periods the booking system sometimes takes a little while (up to 24hours) to catch up! We advise that you screenshot the browser page where your payment is confirmed. Your QR code ticket will be emailed to you 48 hours before the event start time.

Bath is well connected by road, rail, bus, coach and air. You can find out more information about travelling to Bath on our dedicated Travel page.

Alas, our recommendation is that parking in Bath is not an easy or cheap thing to do, and we strongly advise that you use public transport, including the Park and Ride  sites, where this is possible for you. The largest long stay car park is Charlotte Street Car Park which is also the closest to the Jane Austen Centre. For more information about parking and driving in Bath (including the Clean Air Zone), visit the parking section of the VisitBath website.  Please note there is no special or reserved parking provision for media/press.

You can find out more information about travel in and around Bath and parking on our dedicated Travel page.

The majority of our event venues are based in Bath City Centre so the best way to get to each venue is to walk. Most venues are not more than a 10 - 15 minute walk from each other, any locations which are further to get to will have this detailed in the event information. It is possible to get taxis’ between event venues, but as the centre of Bath is predominantly a pedestrian zone, by the time your taxi has negotiated around this no car zone, it would have been quicker to walk! If you do require a taxi, it is always advisable to book one in advance.