To be shocked by the cost of this?

[squashedsandwich]

It’s £20.95 per adult to walk around our Christmas light trail this year. Tickets have just been released. It does look fantastic, but it’s only a mile long.

It’s £15.95 for a 3-15 year old, and free for under 2s.

They’re doing family tickets, 2 adults and 2 kids for £60.

I think it’s sad that at some point soon these activities are reserved for only those who can afford them. Maybe that has always been the case and I have been living under a rock but as someone who is pregnant with their first, I can’t see how families aren’t bankrupt over the school holidays and festive periods just simply from doing these kinds of activities! As with anything, the more DC you have the more it bumps the price up. I know you can intersperse them with free things to do, but I’m sure lots of families at Christmas will feel compelled to pay over the odds just to make it a nice and magical time.

We will likely go. It will be nice for baby’s first Christmas. £40 for us and an under 2 would be affordable right now but I can imagine when you have two in primary the cost must get crazy.

AIBU thinking these companies are taking the mick?

We just walk round the local houses which have some amazing lights then a drink in the local pub!

Must have missed the part in the OPs post where she said she wanted a freebie 🙄

It IS expensive for the average family! I couldn't afford this...but I wouldn't expect it to be free (and FYI neither does the OP!) £16 for a child?? That's crazy money just to walk through some lights (yes, I know it costs the venue to put this on, but these prices are ridiculous!)

Nobody wants a free pass...just an affordable ticket price!

I don’t use their places enough where I live there aren’t many, but now I won’t use their car parks to walk the dog either, not at £8 for an hour or two, it’s crazy

We have one locally. I've never been.
However sometimes they open it up to local residents on the last day for free... so DDs did go a couple of years ago. It is apparently very impressive. Its completely different to looking at decorated houses.

These things do cost money to run.

Expensive experiences that rip people off are the norm these days.
But parents are partly to blame. I and others used to organise lots of free things or very cheap events for local families. We were all volunteers, but some parents were so horrific that none of us are involved any more. So locally we only have the uniformed groups, and lots of expensive clubs and experiences.

NT places contract it out, it's a third party company that charges ridiculous prices. I refuse to go as we're NT members and I'm not paying it.

That's far too much money for that but I also don't get the point of light trails at all, I certainly wouldn't pay more than a couple of pound for one.

I paid just under £50 for 5 of us for the pantomime thats the most expensive 'activity' we do. We go see the free Santa at the shopping center etc... so there are stuff thats for everyone.

There's a huge cash grab these days when you add a holiday to something but theres usually just as many non expensive things, most community centers, WMC or village halls and such run affordable parties and experiences.

It's a business. They entire point of it is to charge the highest amount they can that people will pay.

A loaf of bread isn't £1.50 because the bread company thought it would be immoral to charge more. It's that price because if they charged more, people would buy a different companies bread instead, or would decide to buy cake instead.

Same with the light show. The company will have worked out that at £20 per adult, they'll near enough sell out, but at any higher people will decide to spend their money elsewhere. They're right too, you're still going @squashedsandwich despite being annoyed by the cost. The only thing that would make them inclined to lower their costs is a similar event somewhere nearby.

National Trust only works if you live in a wealthy area of the country where there are lots of places to visit. We have three places in travelling distance for a day out, nowhere very close. The outdoor space is not as good as our local country park. We have been in the house and paid full price. There is ero point going again and again.

Absolutely. But some people seem to think that you just get last year's lights out the box, plug them in, and you're done. No idea how they go through life TBH.

I can not see the attraction, it’s not for me.

id rather go to a village Christmas fete or school fete, or make a Xmas craft

Something like this came to our city a few years ago - I stupidly paid about £55 for us to visit. It was pissing down, my toddler was fast asleep in the pram and the older teens walked around in about 5 min. DH trailed behind in a huff as we had difficulties parking. The whole event was a flop and it hasn’t returned to the city - honestly if they’d charged £5 each it probably would have sold a lot more tickets and been a success.

Where did the OP say it should be free?

Councils have been doing light displays for free pretty much since the invention of electricity (ever heard of things like Blackpool illuminations etc...). Every local council will have a budget for Christmas light displays.

Private venues cashing in on it is very modern trend.

You don't have to go. There are lots of things I'd like to do/have/places I'd like to go but can't afford. Attending Christm
as lights isn't a right.

I don't see the point in taking an under 2 unless you also have older children. Cheaper way could be for one parent to take the children, take turns on activities. You can get into our local one for free if you are willing to trek along the public footpath in the dark. Good with the 6+ age group and you get a fun night hike in as well.

Wait until you see the price of the hot chocolate and mulled wine when you get there!!
£20 sounds cheap to me, I'm sure the ones i've been to were more. They're ok but a bit "once you've been to one you've been to them all" type of thing and the kids (primary age) I went with weren't in the least bit interested, last year they were just a bloody nuisance mainly thanks to excessive consumption of smarties earlier in the day. There's absolutely no point taking a baby other than to fill your instagram page with #soblessed photos.

Agree that the problem is more people feeling that they need to do all these things instead of selecting just 1, or free things.

Walking round looking at lights on houses is free.
Going to a Carol service is free.
Going to a town lights switch on is free.

You don't have to do light trails, Santa trains, ice skating, pantomimes etc.

The problem with Christmas stuff isn’t that this one-off event is expensive, it’s that there are so many Christmas events. Pantos, trips to Father Christmas (for some people, in blooming Lapland), light shows, ice skating, steam railways. I am often taken aback at how much people seem to do before Christmas - perhaps they book it early so they can spread the cost a bit.

It’s not even just Christmas, we went to a pumpkin patch thing for Halloween last year and it was £10 per adult, then we chose 2 pumpkins pay on exit when weighed which was another £26😂

Well that depends!!

My DD brings the DGC to visit me and go for walk looking at Xmas lights because I happen to live in an area where everyone seems to decorate their houses and many gardens too. There is also one house that honestly looks like Santa's grotto every square inch is lit up. I'd hate their electric bill.

An ex of mine used to collect shit 'Winter Wonderland' articles...
The wonderful Lapland experience type of thing.
Everyone shocked that you can't recreate the magical setting of frozen Scandinavian forests in field near Letchworth in November.

You can’t just pluck figures out of the air like £10 and £5 and say that is what the ticket price should be - they are business and need to cover costs. So their ticket price will include all their overheads and some profit. They have to pay staff minimum wage and that will have a massive bearing on the ticket price, plus energy costs.

It must be affordable as the ones we’ve been to have been packed. But there will always be swathes of the population that can’t afford to do nice things. I can’t afford a Caribbean cruise but that’s where I’m at in life unfortunately.

That’s silly money. You do know that they rely on people like you ‘making memories’ to keep raising the prices. Just don’t go. So many people decorate the outside of their homes that you could go for a walk around a house estate/in your city centre and still have a fun time. Plus you haven’t spent loads 🤷‍♀️