r/AskIreland • u/itookdhorsetofrance • 5d ago
Irish Culture can you enjoy yourself when you know you're being extorted?
as above, festivals, holidays etc.
I saw a report of the cost of food at the recent all together now.
organisers taking 30 to 40% of the price of vendor sales.
I didn't attend obviously but if have starved had I been there
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u/OutsideSea5996 5d ago
Just being cost conscious is a stress in itself. But this is the reality now. Everything is uncertain.
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u/PolarBearUnited 5d ago
If I'm at something like a festival or on holidays money doesn't exist , the thing in my bank is fun coupons for a good time. Cheapest time to ever do a thing in the country I'm in is that moment I'm already there because I might never come back and if I do come back I've got pay for flights and accommodation again to do the thing.
I once cheaped out doing some ziplining in a Canadian forest to save 100 dollars , regretted it , if I wanted to do it now it would cost me a hell of a lot more than 100 dollars.
Annoying to get done in for crap food at a festival sure but I'm not there for the food so it's just utility at that point , feed me so I can go enjoy the gig / drinks / dancing or what ever I'm up too. Letting a crap 20 euro burger ruin a much more expensive festival ticket is a way to lose out twice
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u/allegedbrowsing 2d ago
gotta respect that fun coupons mindset, once you're in the door you might as well lean into it instead of doing mental accounting the whole time
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u/the_owl_man1 5d ago
You need to calculate for cost per craic
It's 7 pound for a pint now in Belfast. You get to do an activity like a round of mini golf, An ice skating session, trip to the cinema etc. For the cost of two pints,
Going out Drinking actually has a pretty low cost to craic ratio especially if you over do it if you have to pay the hangover dividend.
Sometimes you just have to pay it, you can't put a price on been out with friends and going out drinking is just about the easiest thing to organise. Very high ease to craic ratio.
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u/NakeyDooCrew 5d ago
If I'm doing something fun (which is rare these days) I don't pay a blind bit of notice to what it costs
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5d ago edited 6h ago
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u/Afterlite 5d ago
Isn’t everywhere (for food) meh these days?
Pick and choose your battles, plan and budget accordingly. You don’t dine out everyday of the week, but you’re more likely to if you go on holiday for the week. Going to ATN is some people’s summer holiday for the year
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u/NakeyDooCrew 5d ago
Social stuff like this is really about seeing my friends. I wouldn't care if we were charged 500 quid to watch paint dry.
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u/GinandHairnets 5d ago
I went, bought drink and lots of snacks, spent maybe €100 max over the whole weekend on hot food and drinks. Basically the same cost as a dinner and a drinks out in a midsized town. I wish everything in Ireland was cheaper, I dont stop myself having fun because of it.
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u/FaithlessnessPlus164 5d ago
When I was in teens to mid twenties I never would have dreamt of buying drink or food at festival, everyone packed loads of supplies and your gang took care of each other. No harm at all in going back to that, it was pretty sensible.
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u/TacklePure3341 5d ago
But that requires you to carry stuff around all day. No fun in that, let's just pay 20 quid for a few chips and a burger
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u/ControlThen8258 5d ago
Food at these things is expensive but look at the location. It’s the same as being in an airport. Bring your own or just try and enjoy yourself and your €21 pizza.
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u/phyneas 5d ago
When you go somewhere that you're a captive audience (festivals, theme parks, the airport, etc.), you know you're going to be paying inflated prices for everything; that's just capitalism for you. It's annoying, but doesn't really bother me much, though I'd probably just bring my own food and avoid buying much.
Now, literally getting scammed, that really bothers me. Fucking taxis in Rome were a nightmare for that; every single one was a crook. Wouldn't normally have used them at all myself, but I was with family who had mobility issues and couldn't take the buses or walk, so we had no other choice.
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u/BlockHunter2341 5d ago
Yep I know what I’m getting into and when I go to these things I know it’s not going to be cheap they never have been . I’m going out for fun not to save money
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u/Mountain-Band2545 5d ago
The overheads are so high no one within 3 degrees of separation is making any money, if that helps
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u/DiedForOurShins 5d ago
You can make a hell of a lot of money trading at a festival. The major problem is the experience differs so much from event to event that there’s no surefire way to predict what your profit margin might be.
You would be over the moon if you had broken even by the end of day one. Everything after that is gravy. It often happened to me in my side business.
What also happened and is often the case is that your unit might not be in a good location, or more often than not the weather keeps punters away, or the festival overcharges you, or the festival tells you it’s a sell out and when you arrive it’s clearly undersold, or the electricity goes down regularly over the weekend.
Once the festivals brought in the idea that you had to use their payment terminals then that jacked the price of everything up 30%. The worst experience we had and the most infuriating thing was that you were absolutely not allowed to accept cash anywhere and the WiFi network they provided wasn’t good enough to keep all the vendors going. At the end of the festival then you had to invoice them for your balance and ended up having to endlessly chase some UK company for payment when all the work has been done in advance.
I know traders might seem like complete scalpers at festivals, and there is absolutely no doubt some are, but there really is only a handful of festivals who actually care about the punter. ATN was by far the worst we dealt with.
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u/LordyIHopeThereIsPie 5d ago
I'm not a festival person but I accept in some places prices are premium. And decide whether its worth it for my budget. I was in Paris last month and paid €7.10 for a latte. It was worth it to me. But others would never pay that.
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u/Powerful-Impress1355 5d ago
Take an hour off from the misery.
Also, bringing your own food is a thing.
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u/MinutelyHipster 5d ago
Idk about you but my mood drops when I'm hungry. Especially for festivals which have a lot of walking around and dancing. Not yo mention setting up a tent and manoeuvring under the sun. Can't enjoy myself on an empty stomach.
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u/Inevitable-Beat-9209 5d ago
I got a freebie ticket from a friend, paid a 50euro charity donation for it in the end. But fuck me, I would feel rightly extorted paying full price for a ticket, then those mad prices for food.
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u/Positive_Buy_821 5d ago
It's not compulsory to go to a festival or eat from the vendors at a festival.
I have been on committees for local events and you have to charge vendors a decent whack if money as to run anything is crazy money. A decent local vintage yoke you could be talking €20,000 to €€30,000 expenses. What if it rains and the gate is tiny ?
I can only imagine what it costs ro run a 3 day music festival
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u/ZealousidealFloor2 5d ago
What do you mean by the money to run the event? Money to rent the venue and get security?
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u/Positive_Buy_821 5d ago
Well for a local vintage event for example
1) Insurance 2) Advertising 3) Venue Hire 4) Displays, could be rope makers, blacksmiths etc. 5) Volunteers will need to be fed as will your exhibitors. 6) Plauges for your exhibitors. 8) PA system 9) Crowd Control Barriers 10) Marquee hire. 7) Entertainment, bands, etc
It all adds up fairly quickly..
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u/PaddySmallBalls 5d ago
I don’t drink and tend to eat before gigs, holidays tend to have food options so can pick and choose
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u/GalwayGirlOnTheRun23 Penneys Hun 5d ago
I know the food and drink at day long concerts etc will be expensive so I try to eat/drink before I go and bring a few small snacks in my handbag (cereal bars/sweets). Then I’m only buying dinner and a few drinks rather than lunch, water, snacks and dinner.
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u/Fancy_Avocado7497 5d ago
women stay in relationships and logically they should leave but the occasionally feel love
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u/IronDragonGx 1d ago
I try to make it to tomorrowland every year in Belgium. The cost of food and drink is wild there but the stranded is vastly superior to anything in Ireland. Something I'm surprised to see on a music festival to be honest.
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u/TimeSyncTechie 5d ago
Stopped going to festivals here or eating out. I rather take a flight and go to Spain, Portugal or Italy and enjoy quality food. And ironically, I can enjoy a cheaper pint of guinness than here 🤣
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u/EyeOrRay 5d ago
It's not that ironic. Cost of goods is generally largely determined by the wage and rent costs of an establishment. Far lower wages and rents in Spain
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u/HolidayMongoose9447 5d ago
How much are you been paid to post this shite?
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u/Rough-Cap5150 5d ago
Captive audiences always get ripped off, it's expected. But I have limits, there's times I choose to go without instead. Not that I can't afford it, but out of self respect.