Lumpy King o' ye Realm Lump'n M'Crack member is offline
Admiral Dread Pirate Lumpy
Joined: Aug 2005 Gender: Male Posts: 1,775 Location: Revel Grove, Oxfordshire Karma: 257
Re: blog about food « Reply #1 on Sept 24, 2009, 11:23am »
I have to say that much like most things at faire the author just doesn't get. He just doesn't understand just like his rants about pub sing and the squaters. You're best just to ignore his rantings or else you will get caught up in his .
"A friend is one who knows who you are, understands where you have been, accepts what you have become, and still gently allows you to grow." William Shakespeare
Joined: Aug 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 302 Location: Middle River, MD Karma: 8
Re: blog about food « Reply #3 on Sept 25, 2009, 9:11am »
We can all just consider the source and just be happy we aren't he. I guess he won't be present at Feast Day, and if he does show up, everyone needs to remind him of his silly little blog.
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" -Benjamin Franklin-
Joined: Mar 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 616 Location: Reston, Va. Karma: 27
Re: blog about food « Reply #4 on Sept 25, 2009, 10:24pm »
Is the blogger the person I think it is? If so, I am raising my middle finger and saying "your number 1". Just for the record I do not bring food to Faire but I don't mind eating some of it. Reguardless I still spend plenty $ on Faire food.
Joined: Sept 2008 Gender: Male Posts: 38 Karma: 21
Re: blog about food « Reply #6 on Sept 28, 2009, 8:50am »
Food drama. I love it. What a silly discussion... Anybody mind if I write an unbelievably long and well thought out response to it? Warning: This topic really doesn't deserve the level of analysis I'm about to give it.
Let's break this argument down, just because I can:
1. If outside food were not allowed in, people would be forced to eat festival food. TRUE. Let's not waste time denying it. Yes, people could choose to go hungry, but the group of people he's talking about (I call these people the "bring a picnic" crowd) are generally there all day, which means not eating is a BAD idea. So a ban on food would force people to buy fest food.
2. If outside food is allowed in, people wouldn't have to buy festival food. TRUE. You need look no further than those with diet restrictions to find examples of people that get by just fine without fest food.
So far, so good. Now let's watch the argument fall to pieces.
3. Continuing the logic from #2, his assumption is that people who bring in outside food do not buy festival food. UNKNOWN. I won't say false, because my gut tells me that it's at least partially true, but at best it's an unsubstantiated assumption. I'd feel more comfortable if he'd been speaking about himself (from experience), rather than judging a group of people that he seems not to be tight-knit with. We've already heard people who say "I bring food AND buy food," so it's at least partially false.
Okay, so his target is questionable. How about his main conclusion.
4. Food brought into the fair cuts into the profits of food vendors at the festival. FALSE. Despite #1 being true, and #2 being true, #4 is almost certainly false. It makes some logical sense to think that an extra financial need would mean extra profit for the festival, but that view is hideously simplistic and incomplete.
For starters, money is a limiting factor. Lord how I wish it wasn't so, but the fact of the matter is, there's only so much money a person can spend at the festival. If I'm a broke college student saving up to pay for a wedding (I am), I'm going to be extremely limited in what I can buy. Yeah, I'd HAVE to buy food, but because I don't have an "extra" $5.00, the money I spend on food would be recovered elsewhere in my budget. One less beer.
On that note, not all food is created equal. Mac and Cheese on a stick is not a meal. It's a snack, a treat. It's also one of the most discussed foods amongst regulars. Oyster Shooters is another one. A lot of the people who bring in food pour money into these indulgences, and if money got tight because they needed to buy an actual lunch, you would see cutbacks on these food items. The needs of the food budget would create cutbacks in the... food budget. End result: no affect on food sales. For my own part, I'd stop drinking frozen lemonade so that I can afford a scotch egg from the booth next door, owned by the same people.
But issues of money displacement aside, the real reason the argument is so laughable is that it suffers from the exact same assumption that plagues so many arguments on MDRF fan sites - It assumes that the dedicated fans matter. They don't. Seriously.
No offense intended to dedicated regulars... I don't mean to make it sound like you don't matter, or that I (or the festival) don't care about you. But we had over 15,000 people on Saturday. How many picnic peeps do you think there are? Round up, just to be on the safe side. Does 150 sound reasonable? That'd be 1% of our crowd, assuming that all 150 boycott fest food. You think a 1% drop in sales even registers as a blip to the food vendors? I guarantee you that the weather has a greater affect on food sales than all of the picnickers combined. Hell, I guarantee you that the unsold food that goes to waste at the end of the day has a greater financial impact than all the picnickers combined.
You know who DOES make a blip on the festival radar? Families. Beyond the dedicated picnickers, families with kids are the other group that frequently brings in food. If you want to talk festival finance, the family dollar is right up there with booze sales. There's a reason they let the young kiddies in free, and it has nothing to do with benevolence.
Families dump a ton of money into the festival. Multiple tickets, food, merchandise (it's not a coincidence that there are 20 places that sell wooden swords), games, etc... It adds up, and it can really break the bank, which is why a lot of families bring in their own food and beverage. You take away their ability to do that, and the cost might be too great. For every $5.00 you may conceivably gain from a regular, you run the risk of losing a family, and all of the money associated with that family's visit, for years and years to come (every family that says, "It became too expensive for us to go" is a generation of lost business).
Another unintended consequences of banning outside food is slightly longer food lines. Long food lines dissuade food purchases, which means that on the busiest of days, there's actually a point where sales start to cap out. I imagine this would be especially important for snack foods... If you gotta eat, you gotta eat, but I'm not standing in a 30 minute line just because I think a Mac n' Cheese on a stick would taste good right about now.
Longer lines also make it more likely that you'll buy your food in bulk from one place, rather than sampling from booth to booth. I have no idea what affect (if any) that would have on sales, but it's noteworthy.
Quick summary of this far too long post: The basic concepts involved in the blog post are technically true (banning outside food would prevent regulars from not spending money on fest food), but the impact on food sales is far more complex than simply thinking that banning food will increase sales. Furthermore, even if sales did increase, the number of regulars affected by a food ban is so small that it likely wouldn't make a dent in sales. The unintended consequences, however, could have a significant negative affect on sales.
There, gigantic wall of text complete. You may now bask in my greatness and leave glowing compliments.
Re: blog about food « Reply #8 on Sept 28, 2009, 1:14pm »
In my humble opinion, not that it is shaping the world, if the owners/management of the MDRF had a problem with people bring food into the faire well then they would do something about it! I mean come on they could be like the local Drive in (Bengies) and charge people to bring their own food in (honestly food is where that establishment makes their money). However the MDRF wants more people in the door to buy stuff for their kids. I saw one kid on the first day in rented costume, hair braided, walking stick, face painted, tail, headpiece and a sword I don’t think her packed lunch put a dent in the Fair’s pocket. People buy their tickets or passes and they are entitled to enjoy the faire the way they want to do it, as long as they obey the rules of the faire and are polite to other people. Hey and if people who sell things at the faire keep their products reasonable they will sell plenty!
In my humble opinion, not that it is shaping the world, if the owners/management of the MDRF had a problem with people bring food into the faire well then they would do something about it!
This applies to all other sorts of hot topics that rennies like to go on about, be it the various guilds performing wenchings or roguings, rennies wearing outlandish costumes for Day of Wrong, the squatters, or what have you. Whatever it is, it will drive away patrons or cut into the profit margin somehow, and it will be The End Of Faire As We Know It®. People seem to forget that there's a perfectly good management team at MDRF, along with paid security people, and I'm sure the people here can come up with plenty of examples where faire took care of behavior they found inappropriate. Bottom line: if you want to control people's behavior at faire, apply to work for the faire in that capacity. Otherwise, let faire management manage the faire.
Master Will Paisley - Minstrel, Interrupted Yeoman-Purser of the Frigate Up Royally (now under new management!) Bard #400 (CD) Faire name - "Flo's husband" Manservant to Mistress von Cleavage, awaiting other accroutrements
"Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy" -Benjamin Franklin-
Joined: Mar 2006 Gender: Male Posts: 616 Location: Reston, Va. Karma: 27
Re: blog about food « Reply #10 on Sept 29, 2009, 8:26am »
Well written posts! Dig a little deeper and the real story will come out lol. This is not the first time he has said or done something like this and I am sure it will not be the last. I have NO respect for him or his rantings(or the mean posts he made on my youtube site). He is an arse, and a coward that hides behind his blogs and computer. My middle finger is still proudly flying high.
PS. And if said blogger is reading this "My wife and I are still waiting for an apology" then and only then will I consider lowering my middle finger!
Former Lord High Drunkard Merc# 819 IBRSC# 1482 IFRP # 1361 Certified Public Assassin Landshark # 114 Horseman of the Renpocalypse (Haughtiness) John Galt Conserv'n M'Crack
In my humble opinion, not that it is shaping the world, if the owners/management of the MDRF had a problem with people bring food into the faire well then they would do something about it!
This applies to all other sorts of hot topics that rennies like to go on about, be it the various guilds performing wenchings or roguings, rennies wearing outlandish costumes for Day of Wrong, the squatters, or what have you. Whatever it is, it will drive away patrons or cut into the profit margin somehow, and it will be The End Of Faire As We Know It®. People seem to forget that there's a perfectly good management team at MDRF, along with paid security people, and I'm sure the people here can come up with plenty of examples where faire took care of behavior they found inappropriate. Bottom line: if you want to control people's behavior at faire, apply to work for the faire in that capacity. Otherwise, let faire management manage the faire.
Agree with the quoted posts, with the following exceptions:
Green - Well... That's the theory anyway. Sometimes the disparity between what the festival espouses and what it enforces makes me sad. Purple - And in a couple years, most of those security people will be old enough to vote! Orange - And if you want to go on a wild power trip while controlling people's behavior at faire, join the parking staff.
I kid, I kid... Sort of.
Also, just stating for the record that I have nothing to do with any nasty drama between the blog's author, and anybody in this community. As far as I'm concerned, you're all pretty, you're all a bit disturbing, and you all have poorly designed forums with way too many sub-folders. Just sayin'.
This applies to all other sorts of hot topics that rennies like to go on about, be it the various guilds performing wenchings or roguings, rennies wearing outlandish costumes for Day of Wrong, the squatters, or what have you. Whatever it is, it will drive away patrons or cut into the profit margin somehow, and it will be The End Of Faire As We Know It®. People seem to forget that there's a perfectly good management team at MDRF, along with paid security people, and I'm sure the people here can come up with plenty of examples where faire took care of behavior they found inappropriate. Bottom line: if you want to control people's behavior at faire, apply to work for the faire in that capacity. Otherwise, let faire management manage the faire.
Agree with the quoted posts, with the following exceptions:
Green - Well... That's the theory anyway. Sometimes the disparity between what the festival espouses and what it enforces makes me sad. Purple - And in a couple years, most of those security people will be old enough to vote! Orange - And if you want to go on a wild power trip while controlling people's behavior at faire, join the parking staff.
For the record, I was thinking of the plainclothes Anne Arundel Sherrifs Department officers when I used the word "security" - the middle aged men who bellow "MOVE TOWARDS THE GATE!" after the end of Pub Sing, rather than the kids in "security" shirts who remind one of the joke about the English Bobbies ("Stop! Or I shall say "stop" 'again!"). Of course, the former security personnel don't get involved in the enforcement of "minor" (ie, non-illegal) rules of faire.
Master Will Paisley - Minstrel, Interrupted Yeoman-Purser of the Frigate Up Royally (now under new management!) Bard #400 (CD) Faire name - "Flo's husband" Manservant to Mistress von Cleavage, awaiting other accroutrements
For the record, I was thinking of the plainclothes Anne Arundel Sherrifs Department officers when I used the word "security" - the middle aged men who bellow "MOVE TOWARDS THE GATE!" after the end of Pub Sing, rather than the kids in "security" shirts who remind one of the joke about the English Bobbies ("Stop! Or I shall say "stop" 'again!"). Of course, the former security personnel don't get involved in the enforcement of "minor" (ie, non-illegal) rules of faire.
Ah, yes. The plain clothes deputies are VERY good at their job. I just wish the public FACE of security didn't look so scrawny and helpless. I think that sends a subtle message about the risks/rewards of misbehavior. "What, you mean this girl I could bench press is going to throw me out?"
The other people I could do without are the cops on Crownsville road that make me turn right when I go out the North entrance, despite a total lack of traffic on the road (meaning there's no reason I couldn't turn left). Every day I have to turn right, and then pull the immediate U-turn to get myself aimed in the right direction. This past Sunday, I turned right, pulled the U-turn, and then was stopped while other cars were allowed to turn left. I almost did something highly regrettable.
Re: blog about food « Reply #16 on Sept 29, 2009, 6:39pm »
The parking staff is weird, they sometimes get it just right with the flow of it, and other times like 2 weeks ago, they do odd things like alternate from sending 2 cars down the hill ( to primo parking) and then the next 2 out to the fence by the road. I dont get it, but perhaps theyre bored standing out in the sun all day a few hundred feet from all the fun.
Security in the faire is amusing to say the least, 15 year olds wearing bright blue, im not exactly sure what they're securing, but I assume that they are there to be the eyes and ears of the plain clothes officers of whom i have no idea how many there are, but they cant be everywhere at once.
The exit cops do seem to think that everyone wants to go out to 97 and Jowen the only logical solution to your problem is move to where the cool kids are or you could just put your signal on and just turn left, i doubt they would stop you as your not impeding traffic or causing any issue.
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or you could just put your signal on and just turn left, i doubt they would stop you as your not impeding traffic or causing any issue.