AIBU to blame people who constantly pay high prices for food and drink at events for keeping those prices high?

So do you just have days out you can do for free? Go to the park or the beach? What do you do for days out in the winter?

Do you never take them swimming or to the cinema or the soft play except for these couple of days a year?

OP has a household income of £115k per year? And only has a couple of family days worth £35 per year. I do think that’s very sad. Kids are only young once.

What a sense of entitlement and privilege to write this.

Many people can't afford this kind of thing even once a year. Managing it a couple of times a year is already giving the children treats that some never get and you think that's a shame?

"Let them eat cake" springs to mind.

This is so sad. Why do you only go out as a family once or twice a year? What a shame for the children.

Alot of people are lazy but laziness costs money.

I don't know which ground you were at, for The Hundred, but at Edgbaston you can scan out of the ground, go to Aldi just across the road, but a whole box of ice creams and bring them back in the ground. I am amazed anyone is daft enough to buy one in the ground.

I think you are being silly across the first couple of pages denying that "you" fed into it by buying stuff, when people are clearly referring to your family / the plural version of 'you' as a couple.

There are plenty of water stations around the ground if you had actually drunk all you could carry (or, again, see note about Aldi). It has already been said on this thread it is the same at Trent Bridge, and I wouldn't be surprised if it is similar at other grounds.

All that said, I agree that the vendors will sell whilst people buy. I think the prices are ridiculous, BUT, at least at the cricket you are allowed to take in a whole coolbox full of food and drink, unlike so many stadia for sports or arenas etc for gigs.

This is our feeling too, most of the time. Where we're staying now, the car park prices have risen from £6 for the day a couple of years ago (which seemed steep then) to £10 now. There's very little to no alternative if you want to spend the day there.

They've also started charging 30p a go for the (quite grim) toilets, even when you just need to wash your hands after eating a sticky ice cream or similar - making the total cost to you for a treat even more. It gets to a point where you no longer feel that you're contributing fairly to the local economy, but just being rinsed at every turn.

With food and drink vans at events and festivals, whatever the breakdown of the charges, somebody is using them to make a lot of extra money.

As far as we're concerned, we would pay a somewhat elevated price, but once it reaches a certain point, we just say No and thus don't spend anything with them at all... but they obviously have enough people who are willing to pay those prices, so I doubt they care about the likes of us.

They are, anyone seen the prices at the Athletics stadium in Birmingham this week. Seventeen pound for a pork roll. No chance 😕
Stop ripping everyone off.

Everywhere is a rip off. Everyone is on the make. Take your own stuff .

I went to watch baseball at the Yankee Stadium recently. I bought a mini-bucket with two ice-creams that looked exactly like chicken drumsticks, complete with pretzel bones and white chocolate and crushed cornflakes for breadcrumbs . Cost was $10.99. Shared with a friend and we were both ridiculously excited and loved them. No-one forced me to buy them, we had a great evening and will keep the happy memories.

That's like blaming house prices soaring on people buying housing. They should refuse to buy until prices reduce!

We were at Efteling recently and there was a cart with helium balloons at the entrance to the park. 3DGCs wanted one and I explained that it would be silly to drag them all around the park as they would probably get lost and they wouldn't be able to take them on the rides. I did, however, say that I would get them one at the end of the day. I went to the stall as we were leaving and discovered that the balloons were 14.50 each. I had to explain that I actually didn't have enough money to buy them (I did, but 14.50 for a balloon WTF?). It wasn't about the money - we ended up giving them 20 euros each to spend in the shop - but that's a ludicrous price for something that would probably be floating up to the sky in 10 minutes time.

We absolutely loved Efteling and will definitely go back - but no balloons will be on the agenda!

Exactly and people chose to spend on £8 ice creams and op had a choice not to.

They often do - especially in the own-brand sectors - but branding is extremely powerful.

Even going back to the actual milkshake example, Lidl sell their own boxes which are a little over half the price of Nesquik and you get approaching twice as much (and imho it's a lot nicer). Often, though, with the branding manipulation, being so much cheaper will often work against it, with people assuming - fed by the countless big-brand adverts - that the 'cheapo' stuff must be rubbish and nasty.

The main brands don't care about wooing the people who either won't or can't pay their prices, as it would be a losing battle. They know that there are enough people who will pay their prices, regardless of cheaper alternatives, or bringing food and drink from home, or drinking tap water or whatever.

It's not about being 'stingy' - it's about choosing how to spend your money. And letting other people make different choices.

Exactly what’s a stingy person the op is. Drank tap water and food from home, dirt cheap tickets, drinks bought for them, and the day cost her £16!

Op you seem to think everyone is struggling. Have you been to London? Have you been to restaurants in London? Queues out the door. They charge those prices because people like you pay it. Who cares if it’s your dh, you’re from the same family.
I’ve also never been to a theatre that allows own food and tickets that cheap. So you scored in other ways. Stop whingeing because overall you saved. Or your could have taken your own ice cream.

Since when has having an ice cream been a long anticipated treat?

I'm not really sure why you needed to explain stuff like "young children love an ice cream treat", and even more so "when it's hot" which isn't exactly rocket science or something that needs justification, but it does sort of explain why you don't make the connection between your group spending excess amount of money on unnecessary stuff but being critical of others for doing the exact same!

if people didn't pay extortionate prices maybe prices might come down. Or perhaps venders would just not sell anything as it wouldn't be worth it.

So why doesn't one company just reduce their price a little? Their profits would go up because of their higher sales (a slightly smaller profit per unit, but lots more units sold). Your theory doesn't make sense, no matter how much you attack me.

Grow up. I’m not saying that at all.

I’m saying there was a spike in prices because of Covid etc, but the prices (conveniently) never go back down again do they. They’re all riding on the back of it. Not just milkshake companies. And it’s not ‘a conspiracy theory’. It’s Greedflation.

Your tickets were dirt cheap for a whole day, OP. So, even including drinks and ice cream, it was a bargain day out. Stop complaining.

You do know the costs of running large venues do you?

They often ARE four times the price of buying an item from the supermarket. Or even an ice cream van.