SunFest daily admission tickets cost $60 at the gate for adults. Not everyone is this enthused.
"SunFest! 2019!" screams one festival goer.
In conversations all over the festival, you hear rumblings of complaints.
SunFest Marketing Director Melissa Sullivan says people say, "I remember when it was free." Turns out SunFest was free for only three of the 37 years it has existed.
"We increased the level of entertainment and that increased the level of costs," says Sullivan.
But do people think ticket prices too high?
"Way too high," says Debbie Horn from Jensen.
"To be honest I think it's a little pricey. It's gone up a lot. Considering its only four days instead of five now," says Cherryl Cannon from West Palm Beach.
"Honestly, I got in for free, it's not that bad," says Jordan Millsaps.
Tracy Gonzales, from West Palm Beach, thinks is a great value because SunFest offers the ability for her to see five or six artists a day.
"We have about a $4.2 million entertainment budget. And those costs have increased over 135% over the last five years. And our ticket prices have increased in price by 32% so we are not passing the rising costs off," says Sullivan.
"I've been to festivals all across the country and this one is beating them if not better," says Shar Bahmni from Arizona.
"We feel like we're not only fairly competitive but probably on the lower side as compared to festivals," says Sullivan.
So how does SunFest rank up to comparable music festivals?
We took the starting price of an everyday ticket for each festival and averaged it out.
Austin City Limits Music Festival is about $87 a day. Ultra in Miami is about $100, Tortuga in Ft. Lauderdale is $76, Coachella in California is $143, and SunFest is $28.
Turns out SunFest is a not-for-profit and saves festival goers money by having 2000 volunteers run various post. Also, they allow non-profits to come in and get $100,000 in total donations back to various agencies.
Additionally, it should be noted that SunFest is a not-for-profit organization and they say if you want to save on ticket prices you should buy them when they first go on sale. For example, if you bought a four-day ticket in advance for this year's SunFest you saved $32 a day.
