IRELAND’S BIGGEST MUSIC festivals are demanding 22-25% of food trucks’ takings, in a move vendors say is driving up prices.

Many attendees at All Together Now in Co Waterford last weekend noted how expensive the food was, with pizzas priced at about €20 and a burger and chips coming in at €18, while a can of soft drink or bottle of water cost €4 at many outlets.

Food businesses who were there, and who have also worked other festivals across the country this summer, said the fees demanded by organisers of the biggest events are forcing them to charge more.

Whereas an upfront “pitch fee” was previously the norm in Ireland, four of Ireland’s biggest festivals – Electric Picnic, Kaleidoscope, Beyond the Pale and All Together Now – have moved over the past three years to a percentage model that is widely used in the UK. 

The Journal spoke to five food businesses this week who said event organisers took 22-23% of their revenue at All Together Now and this will also be the case at Electric Picnic later this month. At Beyond the Pale and Kaleidoscope, which took place in Co Wicklow in June and July respectively, the cut taken by the organisers was 25%. 

The event organisers now require food businesses to transact all sales through proprietary card machines, allowing them to track and control takings. Food businesses said a card transaction fee of 1.5% is levied on these festival-owned card machines, which is higher than normal. Event organisers also charge the food businesses a fee to rent their card machines.

All of these costs are ultimately passed on to hungry festival-goers.

A member of staff at the Phat Cow food truck preparing a burger. The Phat Cow The Phat Cow

“We don’t like doing it, but it’s the only way we can be there,” said Max Marden of The Phat Cow restaurant and food truck, of charging customers more.

“Customers would be complaining to us, and what can we say? We look like the bad guys.”

The Phat Cow charged €16 at All Together Now last weekend for the same burger using premium beef that it can sell for €14 at its restaurant in Tramore, Co Waterford. 

“Food is too expensive, for sure,” said another food vendor, who asked not be named because he is worried about a backlash from event organisers.

He said he charged €17 at All Together Now for a meal he could have sold for €14 if the event organisers had not imposed such high charges. 

“Most people are happy enough to pay for it – I mean, you haven’t got much choice. You’ve got to eat. You’re at a festival in a field.

“I think we priced a can of soft drink [at All Together Now] at four euro, which I just couldn’t stomach paying myself. It’s just crazy.”

A third food vendor agreed that water and soft drinks are particularly difficult to price reasonably when a percentage of revenue has to be handed over.

“You’re paying [VAT] to the government and then you’re paying [the event] 25% and you’re charging a Re-Turn fee. It balloons very quickly,” he said.

There is “a bit of blowback” from customers, he added.

“It’s not as bad as you might expect, but it depends on the event. At Kaleidoscope, [customers] find it very difficult because you’re going up with two adults and maybe two children. And Kaleidoscope took 25% of gross. It adds up very quickly,” he said.

A fourth vendor said he believes most customers “just accept they are being shafted”, and the fact that everything is transacted by card helps to grease the wheels.

“There is that mentality that when you’re spending with your card, you don’t think about it. They [the festivals] are really manipulating that fact,” he said.

A fifth food vendor, who asked not to be named so as not to damage his relationship with people in the festival industry or his livelihood, said he charged about €18 at All Together Now for a meal he could sell for €14 at a small festival earlier in the summer.

He added that he has been able to pay his staff better at smaller festivals that charged only a pitch fee this year.

However, he and other food vendors acknowledged that paying a pitch fee can mean food businesses end up taking on considerable risk. If footfall is low it can be difficult to recoup this upfront cost, which can be over €4,000.

“In fairness, when you’re paying a percentage, it’s quite good if you don’t do so well – you’re paying 22% of nothing. If you have paid a big pitch fee of €6,000 and you have an absolute nightmare you can lose quite a bit of money,” the second vendor said. 

Food businesses also acknowledged that there are other factors affecting their viability, including the amount of food stalls that festivals put in, as if there are too many it can be difficult for anyone to make a profit.

Future direction

Food businesses said they fear the cut demanded by big festivals in Ireland will increase to 30% in the coming years, which is now the norm at festivals in England.

If this happens, “small food traders will be washed out and it will be all large companies” serving “bog-standard packaged food with no quality left”, said Marden, of The Phat Cow.

To turn a profit while paying a large cut to the event organiser, businesses need a high volume of sales, meaning corporate operators with multiple units selling different types of meal are likely to take over the festival food sector, small businesses fear. 

The third vendor said: “I have a lot of friends who do UK trading and over there it is being [taken over] by two or three large concessions that could have 40-plus units. That’s the way it will go here. It will be basically just them, and they will charge what they like.”

We put the food vendors’ comments to the four festivals in question this week. None responded.