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AIBU?

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Original poster

Price of funfair rides!

44 replies

bedraggledmumoftwo · 03/10/2015 14:20

Happened across a massive funfair yesterday when out with dds -.toddler and 3yo. Thought it might be nice to go and show them the lights and sounds and maybe take them on a few rides but was shocked to see the price for the kiddie rides, £2.50 pp for the teacups or little train rides, so £5 a pop to put them on, or more likely £7.50 as I would have to go on with them. WIBU or rather showing my age to assume it would be more like a pound a pop. Is this actually the going rate these days or is this one just particularly expensive, as I think it would be a really expensive trip for a lot of families.

And if that is the cost of the little rides how much are the big ones, is it going to be even worse when they are teenagers?!

OP posts:
Fiddlerontheroof · 03/10/2015 14:21

You need to come to porthcawl in South Wales all the rides are £1 each this weekend as its end of season :)

Original poster
bedraggledmumoftwo · 03/10/2015 14:30

That would be more like it, but sadly the cost to get to wales would exceed the savings! This was just a travelling fair.

So how much do people expect to spend on a family trip to the fair?

OP posts:
CrossfireHurricane · 03/10/2015 14:32

Bridgwater?
Last time we went it was around £35 for us all to have a couple rides and some chips

FirstWeTakeManhattan · 03/10/2015 14:32

This wasn't Goose Fair by any chance was it OP?

DrSausagedog · 03/10/2015 14:33

I don't know, I imagine it must cost a lot to transport all the rides and pay the energy to run them, plus a wage for the staff, so I'm not sure if it's too expensive really. We tend to let the DC select one or two rides to go on rather than everything, so they learn that things cost and they can't have everything. I agree that if a whole family goes on a couple of rides the costs soon mount up though.

Original poster
bedraggledmumoftwo · 03/10/2015 14:50

Don't know where goose fair is, this is just a travelling funfair.

Yes, I suppose they do need to make a profit and cover running costs, but it still seemed like a lot for two minute kiddie rides.

I imagine in the evening when the big rides are filled with teenagers they must be raking it in- if a teacup is 2.50, how much is a waltzer? £5?

I think I'm going to need to readjust my expectations of how much pocket money they will need when they are older!

OP posts:
Madbengalmum · 03/10/2015 14:53

Sounds like the rip off goose fair to me.

Madbengalmum · 03/10/2015 14:53

Goose fair is in nottingham, supposedly one of the biggest.

DisappointedOne · 03/10/2015 14:54

Travelling fairs tend to charge £2 a pop round here (South Wales). A day out at one is more expensive than a day at a theme park!

kormachameleon · 03/10/2015 14:59

This reply has been deleted

Message withdrawn at poster's request.

CocoChanel22 · 03/10/2015 15:01

West Sussex here and it's about the same! It is bloody crazy! I had the same thought a few months ago when I took ds who is 2 and dd who is 4, £5 for the teacups!

Dd also wanted to go on the trampoline thingy where they wear a harness and bounce higher, £4!!! For literally about 2 mins before they pulled her back off again.

I won't be taking dc again, it was just really money grabbing and odd.

Iwanttobeadog · 03/10/2015 15:02

Yes £2.50 here too. We spent £50 in about 20 minutes. We'll not be going to the fair again

DontOpenDeadInside · 03/10/2015 15:13

There's one here at the minute and yes the kiddie rides were £2.50 and I have 3 dds Shock managed to distract them with chips lol.
There's a permanent fair about 25 minutes away which is £15 for 50 tickets and the rides are about 3/4 tickets each which is much more reasonable, and we end up spending more as we are getting better value for our money. Whereas at £2.50 a ride they might go on 1 if they're lucky so the fair loses out.

Original poster
bedraggledmumoftwo · 03/10/2015 15:18

Yes it does make the proper amusement parks look like better value!

OP posts:
LaLyra · 03/10/2015 15:22

It's £2.50 at the fair here, but if you need to go on with a littlie they don't charge for the adult. It's much cheaper to go to the (overpriced imo) 'theme park' place that's nearby permanently and pay £10 each for wristbands than it is to go to the little fair.

LookAtAllThesePhucksIGive · 03/10/2015 16:14

I spent £60 on south pier in Blackpool. 3 wristbands for the kids and some tickets for adults to go on the odd ride. It was a rip off. 3 of the rides were closed and there were rides that cost extra. Won't be going back in a hurry.

Welshmaenad · 03/10/2015 16:22

FIDDLER!!

See you later, butt Grin

DisappointedOne · 03/10/2015 16:25

My daughter's in porthcawl today, fiddler.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 03/10/2015 16:32

I used to run a big gala day in our area which had loads of these things, and when the prices started to shoot up the owners put all the blame on insurance increases

To be fair I've no doubt the premiums had gone up, but it's hard to see how the ridiculous prices could be justified when you take into account the numerous events they attend, the huge number of riders, etc. Eventually I told some of the worst racketeers that they wouldn't be coming again ... at which point they decided they could reduce the ride prices again if only I'd change my mind Hmm

summerainbow · 03/10/2015 16:48

We have a fun fair comes near used to the same price as the OP says
Every Thursday it used to a £1 a ride . Then one year the only day it was busy was on Thursday now go every ride every day of the week .
It comes around around Easter did ok but this year it came back at the end of summer holiday did not business with older kids ( every parent just had to buy new school unformed ) lots of little kid though.
I think at the £2.50 a ride people just go once and never come back but a £1 a ride people go back a few times and buy things like food.

Puzzledandpissedoff · 03/10/2015 19:13

I agree with all who've pointed out that there's a finite amount of money people will spend on these things - they'll visit an event with a certain sum of money, and on the whole once it's gone it's gone

So if organisers charge a gate fee, less will be spent on stalls - if a ride charges too much, folks won't go back for another - if drinks cost a fortune less will be drunk and so on

Among all the grasping and greed, maybe some of these suppliers would do well to remember that Hmm

CloakAndJagger · 03/10/2015 19:19

Our local traveling fair advertised a wrist band - £5 ride as much as you like. You had to pay to get in.
Bought the wrist bands, got in, then discovered that all the inflatables, the fun houses and the bungee trampolines were extra at £2.50 each. The kids were too small to go on most of the other rides.

Now THAT was a rip off.

ouryve · 03/10/2015 19:22

There was a funfair at Sunderland Steam festival, last year. £2.50 for hook a duck (almost a week's pocket money gone in one got for DS1) and £2 each person for the big wheel - which ended up going round almost empty. I bet if the tickets had been half that there would have been a lot more than twice as many people on it because the event was very busy.

Sniv · 03/10/2015 19:25

Travelling funfairs have always been expensive, in my experience.

I'm 30, and I knew as a child that I'd get one ride, one go on a stall, and one piece of ridiculous junk food and it was imperative to choose wisely. At fairs we spent a lot of the time walking very carefully around scrutinising the offerings and weighing up the opposing merits of the Waltzer vs the Mixer, and the prize selections of the various Hook-A-Ducks like it was Serious Business.

Datschi · 03/10/2015 19:29

We had one near us last week. The price of the individual tokens went down the more you bought - £2 for 1 token, £6 for 5 tokens, £10 for 10 tokens.

But you couldn't transfer the tokens to different rides, and the DC wanted to go on a couple of different things, so it couldn't really take advantage.

I suppose if you went with a group, each person could spend a tenner on ten tokens, then you could swap them all between you so you didn't have to just have 10 goes on the same thing.