Attendees at the festival The Crave have complained about the price of water (6 euros!) at the festival, sparking debate about whether there should be free water taps at festivals.
We’ve all been there. It’s sweltering hot, you’ve paid a small fortune for a day festival ticket and your spending your money on tiny cups of beer. Then you realise a tiny bottle of water is the same price, if not more, than beer. It’s 25 degrees and the organisers are wondering why the heck everyone is a mess at the festival.
This happened again this weekend and they received countless complaints. According to NOS, PvdA asked ‘why there were no free taps at the dance festival’ – the festival has not responded to the complaints. Attendees were not allowed to bring their own or leave to fetch water.
Free water at festivals: Why is this not a thing?
Water at festivals is seen to be an added expense for festivals organisers, so it’s just not done unless the permit requires them to do it (or the tap was paid by sponsors). The complaints around this festival were about the weather and how crazy it was to have no access to free water in that heat.
It all boils down to money. However, if they put the price of tickets up by 1 euro, they could make enough for a tap and a lot of profit after. But they won’t because they aren’t made to and they’d rather pocket that extra 1 euro for themselves. Also, they won’t have all those water sales. By law, UK events and bars must provide free tap water to its customers – and it works – and trust me, the companies still make a lot of money from other means. The Dutch should follow suit, in my opinion.
According to NOS, the PvdA wants The Hague to be added to the list of places that must provide free tap water as part of their permits, just like Amsterdam. Whether this happens or not, we will just have to wait and see.
What are your thoughts? Let us know in the comments.
Just faint and the costs of the disturbance to organisers will be more than the water
I have sent mails to EU commission and certain MEPs so as to make a law to have a limit on the price of the bottled water in 0,5 Lt & 0,75 Lt.