On October 12, 1991, Dave Rauschkolb held a microphone and a small speaker box on the Seaside amphitheater lawn and emceed the first Seeing Red Wine Festival. Cabana Man set out umbrellas. The local band Hubba Hubba played. His business partner at Bud & Alley's, Scott Witcoski, had proposed tickets at ten dollars in advance or twelve at the gate. That account comes from VIE Magazine's history of the festival, which describes the day as small and fun.
On Saturday, November 7, the general admission Grand Tasting will sit on that same stretch of town at $300 a ticket before fees, according to the festival's ticketing page on Big Tickets. By mid-October, most of the weekend was listed as sold out. The price is the obvious change. The bigger one is in the calendar. Seeing Red was invented to give Seaside a reason to be busy in months when it had none. The weekend it fills now sits inside a run of town events that starts with Halloween and doesn't stop until January.
A Festival Built for the Months Nobody Came
According to VIE, the idea came out of a Seaside merchants' meeting where shop and restaurant owners talked through the same problem: fall and winter brought few visitors, and the town practically shut down in the colder months. Rauschkolb described that meeting to the magazine:
"We had come together to brainstorm and to think of ways to get people to visit during those slow months."
Witcoski suggested a wine festival. The other business owners added ideas for pulling it off, and Witcoski ran with it: he designed the poster, worked out the music and set the ticket prices, according to the same VIE account. The festival's own history page says the name came from that first poster, which was mostly red. It also gives a second motive. The event was meant to bring "potential homeowners and customers" to a small, quiet town with only a few houses along 30A.
So the festival was never just about wine. It was a commercial calendar decision made by the people who ran Seaside's storefronts, aimed at a specific gap in the year. Holding it in fall was the whole point.
The Same Few Blocks, Thirty-Four Editions Later
The official festival site bills 2026 as the 34th year, running November 5 through 8. The format has grown from one afternoon to four days. The footprint has barely moved. Every event happens within a short walk of Central Square, and the opening night belongs to the restaurant whose partners started it.
- Thursday, November 5: Vintners Dinner. 6 to 9 p.m. at Bud & Alley's. The Seaside event listing says more details are coming.
- Friday, November 6: Al Fresco Reserve Wine Tasting. 6 to 8:30 p.m. at the Lyceum and Lyceum Lawn, $450 before fees.
- Saturday, November 7: Battle of the Somms. Starts at 10 a.m., $275 before fees. It's a multi-course meal where two Master Sommeliers compete with paired wines and guests vote on the pairings they prefer.
- Saturday, November 7: Grand Tasting. General admission runs 1 to 4 p.m. in Seaside Central Square for $300 before fees. VIP guests get in at 12:30 p.m. and have a lounge in the square, at $450 before fees.
- Sunday, November 8: Celebration of Bubbles. 10 a.m. to 1 p.m. on the Lyceum Lawn, $125 before fees. The sparkling wines are paired with a brunch from Chef Jim Shirley.
The Battle of the Somms venue depends on which listing you read. The Seaside events calendar puts it at Daytrader, from 10 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. The Big Tickets page lists OBE Pavilion and a noon finish. If you hold a ticket, confirm the venue with the organizers before Saturday morning.
The package lineup has changed since last year. Seaside's 2025 announcement introduced a Super VIP Bundle covering the reserve tasting, the Battle, the Grand Tasting and Bubbles, and it separately described a private beach welcome reception for certain lodging guests. The 2026 ticket menu offers Friday and Saturday bundles instead, at $650 for general admission and $900 for VIP before fees on Big Tickets. One Seaside rental company lists the VIP bundle's public price at $800, so the figure may depend on where you buy.
What Was Left on October 13
The founders wanted to fill a slow season. The festival they started now sells out ahead of the weekend. In its retrospective, VIE wrote that festival tickets sold out within a day or two and that VIP tickets then cost $300. That old VIP price is the general admission price this year.
On October 13, inventory posted by a Seaside rental operator showed the Al Fresco Reserve Tasting, the VIP Grand Tasting, the Celebration of Bubbles and both weekend bundles sold out. Four Battle of the Somms seats and 224 general admission Grand Tasting tickets were still listed. More than two weeks have passed since then. The Big Tickets event page shows what is actually left. With fees, a general admission ticket comes to $318.39 there.
For anyone without a ticket by now, the Grand Tasting is the realistic way in. Fittingly, it's also the event closest to the 1991 original: an afternoon outdoors in the middle of town.
Who Is Pouring, and Who Used to Cook
The festival's 2026 brands and vendors page leans heavily toward small producers. It lists Blue Rock Vineyard & Winery, Lemelson Vineyards, Nicholson Jones, T Berkley Wines, Covert Estate, Good Clean Wine, Grapejuice Group, Violet Vines, Copain Wines, Thompson 31Fifty, Jackson Family Wines, Chris Hamilton Cellars, Julien Fayard Wines, Daniele Conterno, Robert Biale, DiBacco Imports, Phipps Family Cellars, WillaKenzie and Purple Corduroy.
The Grand Tasting listing promises food from Seaside restaurants and local eateries but hasn't named them for 2026. Past years give a sense of it. In its write-up of the 25th festival, VIE described about 250 wines and a few Champagnes poured across downtown Seaside, with local chefs set up between the wine booths. Great Southern Cafe served small portions of its blackened shrimp and Grits à Ya Ya. Bud & Alley's and the Pizza Bar served grilled shrimp and brick-oven pizza, and Central Square Records handed out duck-fat caramels. A record store giving out caramels at a wine festival only happens when the town's merchants are the ones throwing it, which is how this festival began.
The Calendar the Merchants Were Trying to Build
In 1991, the problem was months with nothing going on. Here is how Seaside's own listings fill the weeks after this post goes up:
- Halloween, Saturday, October 31: 4 to 7 p.m. in Central Square, this year with a "Golden Ticket" candy-colored wonderland theme, per the Seaside event page.
- Seeing Red, November 5 through 8: the weekend described above.
- Nutcracker at Seaside, November 22: a free performance by Ballet Pensacola at the Seaside Amphitheater, according to the company's performance schedule. A start time hasn't been posted yet.
- Holiday Parade and Turn on the Town, Saturday, November 28: 3 to 8 p.m., with an Emerald Coast Theatre Company performance at Krier Plaza, the tree lighting, and Santa photos at the Christmas Village until 8 p.m., per Seaside's listing.
- Seaside Holiday Market, Sunday, December 6: local artisans and makers in Central Square from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
- Sounds of Seaside in December: Roman Street on December 2, Max McCann on December 9 and 23, Fred Domulot on December 16, and Flow Tribe on December 30. The December 2 listing puts that show at 4 to 6 p.m. in Central Square.
- 30A Songwriters Festival, January 15 through 18, 2027: at Seaside and venues along 30A, according to the town's winter preview.
That preview says more holiday events will be added as they're announced. The season the merchants of 1991 were trying to create now has a full schedule, and the wine festival they invented sits a week into it. The Vintners Dinner starts at Bud & Alley's at 6 p.m. on Thursday, November 5.
Seeing Red is one of the clearest examples of how Seaside's calendar shapes the way the town is used through the year. For owners deciding when to visit, when to rent and when to keep a cottage free for family, that rhythm is useful to understand. If you'd like to talk about how weekends like this one play into owning on 30A, Morar Group is glad to share what we see from week to week. Text or Call Us — Start Your 30A Conversation.
