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?

Ah the Annual Landfill Fest otherwise known as Christmas. Where greed knows no bounds but is juxtapostioined with maudling faux sympathy for straving children.

Events , including Christmas ones and music festivals are very expensive to run. Unlike year round activities they have a lot of investment that needs to be paid back over a very short time period. In addition wages have increased and staff costs are a big part. Given the risky nature of these it is easy to see why they have to charge relatively high prices.

Businesses are there to make money, so they are pricing it reasonably, given that you are still thinking of going. There are only 2 ways to show them, 1) don't go or 2) Setup your own and charge a fiver less. Businesses will charge as much as they can get away with and will only stop when people stop using their service.

It sounds a lot, but most towns and cities have a Christmas lights display you can see for free. The baby won't have a clue what it's all about anyway.

I’ve done Christmas at Kew a couple of times and it’s fantastic! Always sells out too, and I’m fairly sure it was more than £20 per head… lots of things are out of my budget, but they don’t need or want it to be afford everyone- these places have ridiculous overheads to cover for a start.

i remember one of these articles which was accompanied by a hilarious photo of an elf lurking behind a tacky looking log cabin smoking a fag😂

This is why I put money in savings accounts. We do a theatre trip, Santa visit, light trail and ice skating every year and it costs a bomb.

As well as the usual, presents for Christmas, birthdays etc I also allocate money for Easter, Halloween, a holiday, extra cash for each week I’m off with the kids in the holidays.

Budgeting is the only way not to have horrific bills after doing something nice.

I wish they could be cheaper, but an awful lot of money is spent setting these light trails up, staffing them and the energy costs to run them.

I agree they aren’t affordable for lower income families. They often aren’t affordable for the staff who work on them to bring their own families to see.

These are a treat for those privileged with a disposable income.

There is no equivalence whatsoever between being able to get a hip operation or send your child to a school which actually has books and being able to gawp at some coloured lights at your local stately home.

Demanding a lower price = demanding a pay cut for the already underpaid.
We can’t have a living wage for all and dirt cheap prices on things like this that are labour intensive.

This is such a good point. I see time and time again. People wanting min wage increased. More workers rights. Which is fair enough, and Labour are promising this. But the result is it needs to be paid for, so every single thing we buy or use will increase in cost to pay for it. There is no magic money tree. If companies pay more to employees and their rights cost companies more, then the companies will charge to cover this.

It’s a business. Like other businesses they charge what they can get away with.

That’s really not how pricing works, it’s either market based on cost plus.

so it’s either this is the average in the market, you see this in say fast moving consumer goods,ie Coca Cola v Pepsi. Of cost plus. So it costs us a pound, and we need to make a 20 percent mark up to pay x ie taxes or reinvestment, so I will charge 1.20.

it would be a fairly shit company who says think I can get away with a fiver, let’s try that..

Alternatively demanding a (small) pay cut for the CEO or a slight reduction in dividends for the shareholders?

That's my point

Why should people be denied a decent education for their children or basic healthcare simply because they are earning minimum wage?

People complain about not being able to "gawp" at Christmas lights but continue to ignore the serious stuff.

Charging what you can get away with is exactly what market pricing is, surely?

But you cannot live in fantasy world. You know full well wages go up, prices go up. Prices go down. Wages go down; or staff numbers. Doesn’t matter if you or I think it’s shit. That’s how it works.

No it’s what the market sees as the value.

The only way companies will stop charging rip off prices for things is if people stop paying them.

If the Christmas lights trail gets no one buying tickets this year then they might reduce their prices the next year. Or go out of business. Which frankly if they're ripping people off they deserve!

The Tesco CEO earned around £10 million last year. Tesco employs 310,000 people in the UK. So, even if you paid him nothing, that's an extra £32 to give to each employee. Assume that most are not full time, and average maybe 20 hours a week then that's 1,000 hours a year, or a £0.03p an hour payrise.

And as the dividends are in part what ultimately pay for most private sector pensions, and most shares are held by instittional investors, then cutting dividends doesnt seem sensible either...

Well answered.

Actually, unless it is a very competitive market (and prices are pretty much just equal to cost) then "what they can get away with" is a very important determinant of how much firms charge on top of cost. But economists call this "elasticity of demand". If demand does not fall much with price increases, then economists call the demand "inelastic" and the optimal profit maximizing price will be significantly above cost. If demand does fall a lot with price increases, then the demand is "elastic" and the optimal profit maximizing price will be close to cost. But in everyday speak, that's pretty similar to charging "what they can get away with". The less sensitive demand is to price, the more they will charge because they can "get away with it".

OP as a mum of 3 I can assure you these things have always cost a fortune and are normally over rated with over hyped kids in attendance. The things my kids love the most are:

1st Dec box with Christmas PJ's for wear all month, advent calendar, Christmas craft selection all super cheap from the works, christmas books and Christmas jumpers. I buy everything through the year in the sales. They need the Christmas jumpers for school and the books go away in Jan to the attic. Elf arrives with this all. I have had PJ's for as little as 50 pence each set. We do crafts through the month.

I plan activities like Christmas crafts from our boxes, visiting lights at houses in local area's in our pjs. Christmas film nights and one Santa visit each (oldest DC is a non believer so doesn't visit).

Look for free entry events, nice walks etc.

Santa never brings technology in our house as I didn't want the kids to think Santa has endless funds.

Good grief. Blenheim does absolutely charge through the nose for everything. Their adventure playground is highway robbery.

Waddesdon is slightly more reasonable if you’re an NT member.

Drive round the neighbourhood for free 😊