Foodies Festival Tatton Park Review: Blatant profiteering.

Imagine a food festival, one you would really enjoy. One where a huge range of new and unusual foods are available to buy, where innovative stands embrace the growing culture of street food by bringing the best of world flavours. One where you could treat yourself to a VIP upgrade knowing it opened a few doors and gave you one or two priorities here and there.

Well if you find one please let us know because Foodies Festival at Tatton Park was a shambles, a waste of cash and if I were one of the many people I spoke to I would be writing to get my money back.

OK it was chucking it down with rain, never going to endear you to an outdoor event, obviously it put off a number of traders too with empty stalls a plenty. Those that were there, well a good 90% were the seen them a million times before type. How many stalls selling cheese with chilli in do you really need? Of course the usual adopt a cat / dog stalls were there, never saw the link before, although did eat dog in Vietnam once so...

Of course being at a food festival you really want your tastebuds titilated at lunchtime...there was a quite impressive deli in the middle of the field that from a distance promised much.  On closer inspection it was, in fact a walkers crisps stand giving away packets of new flavours that we understand bombed when trialed in the South West earlier this year. Elsewhere there were burger stalls, ok the quality of the meat was allegedly much better but it was presented no better than any burger stall outside your average football ground. Anyone familiar with the street food culture around London Kings cross and indeed in Leeds at the Trinity Kitchen will know what a hugely impressive movement is sweeping the nation, creative individuals adapting every cultures food to new and exciting, cook and eat quick levels. A food festival would be right on top of that you would have thought,...you would have thought wouldn't you...

We opted to head back to the car and seek out a nearby gastropub, if we cant have invention then at least we will have it in the dry, and a seat.

All in all there are more stalls at the Leeds Loves Food festival each year and thats free, admittedly no VIP and no priority entry to the various theatres, but then again, though promised, it wasn't delivered.

One key difference with Leeds Loves Food and several others up and down the country (all free) is that they are held in city centres, places easy to get to by public transport. Thats how we travel to them, knowing we can safely enjoy a drink or two. With Tatton Park, more specifically the foodies site was only reached by the most convoluted of routes in car....so of course I very very carefully watched my alcohol intake. Given almost everyone arrived by car there seemed an excess of places to drink, more than to eat I estimate, as well as several places offering samples all day, it doesnt seem a safe thing to do. It is a foodies and not a drinkies festival after all.

Now standard pricing was £12, oh and £5 parking that they neglected to mention, but for £38 you too could be a VIP...here's what the extra £26 gets you...

Vip ticket includes - free glass of bubbly, free showguide, goody bag, use of VIP area 

with views of entertainment stage, private bar and refreshments/tea/coffee/biscuits 

all day, priority entry to 1 Chefs Theatre/1 Drinks theatre/1 Cake& Bake Theatre

( tickets released on the day and subject to availability) 

Now first impressions...is that value?
Lets look closer... that free glass of bubbly that everyone seemed to like calling champagne was actually an english sparking wine, not bad in truth but been nowhere near France ever. A show guide... A black and white booklet of exhibitors, those "top chefs" and where / when they are performing, and a crude map that didn't even pinpoint where any exhibitor was. A goody bag... well this aint the Oscars we know that but this crude paper bag of dubious samples and leaflets does not constitute a goody bag in any english speaking part of the world. Use of VIP Area with view of the entertainment stage, well yes if you went out in the rain and asked everyone to move out of the way you probably could see the stage. There was indeed a private bar and free tea and coffee (make it yourself in polystyrene cups - feeling especially VIP yet?) Those tempting biscuits were gone by 1pm and never reappeared.

Now priority entrance to the theatres could be really useful, you know how full these can get, even in this case when its someone you have never heard of.. Now the english dictionary defines priority as:
1. Precedence, especially established by order of importance or urgency.
2.a. An established right to precedence.   b. An authoritative rating that establishes such precedence.
3. A preceding or coming earlier in time.
So its fair to assume that if I have a priority ticket that I can get in before anyone else without such a ticket, therefore I will get a seat.
No, priority at Foodies mean you have a priority ticket but you might as well wipe your nose with it for all its worth. There is zero control over who goes in and when, as its raining people sit in there anyway. I spoke to several people who were outraged that they couldnt attend any of the events they had priority tickets for. This really was appalling lack of arrangement and consideration for people who had paid an outrageous amount of money.

In the interests of openness we attended as press guest so paid nothing, though I do begrudge the fiver parking. We did also receive vip tickets through a competition win that were donated to us.

I do feel sorry for those poor souls who unwittingly took up the 2for1 offer I helped promote. Even at £19 each the VIP was very poor value.

I have advised Foodies of this blog article and will honestly and openly print any response I get, but were you there, what did you think. I spoke to around 20 people in the "VIP" tent and not one was happy, they were sitting there most of the afternoon, dry and with free coffee.