The sellout is me, not the Good Food and Wine Show. See, I’ve accepted an offer of free tickets to the show in exchange for doing a promo post.
Never accepted payola before…then again, I haven’t been tempted with an offer until now. They say everyone’s got a price, and I guess I’ve just demonstrated that mine’s not very high. Think of it this way, teeming and now disenchanted hordes of Boomtown Rap devotees: life’s full of disillusionment – I’m just doin’ my bit in the service of checkin’ your collective realities.
Truth is, a show like this wouldn’t usually interest me, and there’s no way I would have paid to go. I guess it’s fair to say I’m biased against events likely to attract the sort of well-heeled hip-conscious foodie wankers I can’t stand (and from whom I seek differentiation by referring to myself as a food freak, rather than a foodie). And I’ve had a gutful of celeb chefs who use prohibitively expensive ingredients, run everything through a food processor and add butter and salt in cardiac-seizure-inducing quantities. Gary Me-again and Georgieboy Calombaris take a bow. I notice these guys’ cooking demos have already been booked out, although some tickets will be available at the venue on the day. Needless to say, I won’t be in the queue.
It will be interesting to test my bias against the reality. Will report back with my findings.
Anyone interested in attending, times and events etc are listed on the Good Food and Wine Show website: see here. Kicks off in Perth this Friday, then does the rounds of other states.
PS: On more attentive perusal of the website, it appears that the events listed – including the cheese and wine ‘classes’ that I was most interested in – have an admission charge of between $30 and $75. This is on top of the $30 show admission price (which gives you one reserved entry to the ‘Celebrity Theatre’ IF AVAILABLE). Great. And here we come to one of the primary reasons all this yuppie foodie crap pisses me off – if you ain’t well monied, you’re cut out! I feel inclined to save my bucks for my next trip to SE Asia, where TRUE gourmet food is abundant on the streets for less than the price of a mediocre Perth coffee.
PPS: A comment in response to the above from organisers of the Good Food and Wine Show (see below) has clarified an important point. My impression that there was nothing much else to the Show than the fee-attracting events like the celeb cooking demos and the wine and cheese classes was incorrect. As the organisers point out, they have attempted to cater for a diverse crowd, and there are apparently plenty of free exhibits and demos for those who are disinclined to shell out for the fee-attracting events.
Hey Boomtown Rap
Don’t be too hard on yourself – you’re not a sellout for accepting free tickets – you are providing a service to your supporters and, as you are not sure you will like it, you understandably don’t want to pay for tickets.
We think you will be pleasantly surprised. You are concerned there will be ‘well-heeled hip-conscious foodie wankers’ there – of course there will be!!! The beauty about these events is they attract a wide range of foodies from those with simple tastes and an even simpler approach to food preparation and consumption, to your average punter who is interested in innovative and interesting culinary info and sampling as well as and a good day out, right through to your Class A food and wine wanker who knows everything there is to know – or thinks they do. I have one thing to say here – Vive la difference!
Who wants to go to an event that attracts a homogenized crowd? Let’s face it, food and wine is enjoyed by billions the world over and the Good Food & Wine Show celebrates this. (So we’re just doing our bit to ‘check your reality’. LOL)
If George and Gary are not your thing, that’s cool. None of us is prepared to deny that Masterchef is an absolute juggernaut for Channel 10 and we could put The Queen, Julia Gillard, you name it, in the next tent and I reckon the Masterchef boys would still put more bums on seats. I guess that is the power of television – it brings the beautiful world of cooking into people’s homes every night and viewers love them for it.
Just a few corrections on your PS info. There are charges on some of the sessions eg Cheese Masterclass, Gourmet Garden Cooking School and some Reidel Wine classes (NB Reidel Wine Theatre is free). These are run by those individual companies, not the organising body, so the entry fee covers the amazing food and wine consumed through that session. You could never offer that level of quality and quantity if it was a freebie plus hand out 112-page cookbooks as they do in the cheese session or the gourmet garden herb and spice goodie bag in the gourmet session. There are plenty of people who expect to be able to sample really good stuff and expect to pay for it. Conversely, there are loads of freebies for those who love that element. Like I said, just trying to keep a broad cross-section of attendees happy.
With the pre booking of seats, that is done to save queuing on the day. I don’t know anyone who likes queuing and with almost 22,000 people attending last year, we just wanted to avoid anything that might put a downer on the day for someone.
Thanks for the agenda plug: Anyone interested in attending, times and events etc are listed on the Good Food & Wine Show website. We love your work and trust you will find lots to do and taste at the Good Food & Wine Show. Happy blogging.
Hiya ‘Good Food and Wine Show’.
My ‘payola’ stuff was meant semi-ironically, but ta for pointing out that my ethics remain uncompromised!
You make some fair points (and a couple I would feel inclined to debate with you in other contexts – but this is not the place).
Thanks for your clarification on the nature of the show. Glad to learn that there are free exhibits and demos etc once you get inside. Maybe I didn’t take enough time perusing your website, but I reckon it should be made clearer in your online promo material that there is more to the show than the listed fee-attracting events (Celeb Chef demos, the Cheese Masterclass etc).
Anyway, refreshing to receive a no-bullshit well-reasoned comment like yours to correct my misunderstandings, instead of the sort of peevish, confrontational putdowns that are all too typical in blogland.
Look forward to attending and will report back the experience in a separate post.
Cheers
R