Weekend Summary

[joker smoker]

good to hear he thought the top rib was ''god'' !

[British BBQ Society]

Any idea when this might be aired??

its going to be aired in August, although dont hold me to that!

[Constabulary]

Hi,

Did anyone else feel somewhat cheated by the way the tickets were sold to the Big Festival. It seemed all the people I spoke to at the event paid £30 for entry so with 3 meals they paid £45. Yet when I booked online I was charged £65 for the same thing. As it was for charity I pursuaded five other to go also at the £65 and when they found out what most were paying they were quite upset too.

I think I was mislead by thinking the price on the Big Featival website was the correct price and did not realize I was being tricked into paying up to 35% more.

Let me know if anyone else had the same problem?

PS. The BBQ Society stand was great.

[All Weather Griller]

I heard that the Jamie Oliver foundation took the intiative to reduce some ticket entry fees at key points in the day. I think after lunch day tickets were reduced (Obviously there would have been half of the value lost if you turned up at 13:00).

I hadn't heard anything about discounts on full days but that said I could believe it. I heard a lot of people say that they though it was an expensive entry, but as you say it was charitable.

[Chris__M]

I didn't go, as I had other commitments. However, when I was thinking about it, I was puzzled by their published prices - standard "no-food-included" was listed as 35 quid, while a 3-dish ticket was 65 quid. And yet the dishes were only 5 quid each.

I'd assumed that the dishes included with the 65 quid ticket were special in some way.

[All Weather Griller]

Was the £65 ticket the VIP experience too?

I know that included posh toilets and access to other Bar areas.

[Constabulary]

Alas no it was a basic ticket which included 3 X £5 meals and I bought the tickets through the Jamie Oliver big drastic website buy now link.

[British BBQ Society]

I cant speak for the organisers, this is the only event in the UK 100% for charity, that said I agree with the public opinion which has been aired on the feastival facebook page. i think the biggest problem was the amount of time between launch and event. The British BBQ Society only had 4 weeks notice to put on our part of the event. This was a test bed for a much larger event next year (so I have been led to believe) and a lot of lessons will have been learnt, discounts offered by groupon to name but one damaged the hard work that was put in initially. i think better organisation next year will belay any fears of the same problems.

Having said that, a concert ticket now costs £50 plus, if i had gone on any day, stayed to enjoy the bands (main acts all well known) 3 dishes per ticket, free funfair plus everything else it was worth the price any day. The downside was the inconsistency of ticket prices.

Is that a fair summary?

[Chris__M]

Was the £65 ticket the VIP experience too?

I know that included posh toilets and access to other Bar areas.

No, the VIP ticket was 125 quid a day. For that you got entry, access to the VIP bar and the chance to meet people, 5 dishes, plus "additional BBQ food all day", and free booze.

Oh, and access to the VIP loos, which given the free beer was probably just as well.