The Royal Easter Show – can anyone still afford to go…?

Going to the Royal Easter Show in Sydney has been a family tradition for decades, for almost all of the 20th century anyway. And for most of that time it was really quite affordable to take the kids along and have a really good day out. I would say around 15 years ago it started to become a challenge to be able to afford to take the family, park the car and buy the food, go on the rides and buy the stack of showbags you traditionally always buy.

I remember back in the 70′s dad giving me and my sister $2.00 each and we would leave with showbags hanging off each arm – about six each. Now the bags cost as much as they would if you bought each item in them from a shop and that is wrong – they were meant to advertise promotional products at a vastly reduced price but that message has long been lost. The showbags too, these days, reflect the materialistic society we have become – there are showbags for everything now whereas before they were basically from companies you would not normally purchase from. The Commonwealth Bank bag was always brilliant because you went back to school after Easter with some new pencils, pens, writing paper, money box and other odds and ends you got in their showbag. These days I reckon you would get an application for a mortgage and a brochure of their bank charges…

Yes, it has become too expensive these days and the promoters are now out to make as much money from the public as possible rather spend money to earn our custom – the advertising industry has become too arrogant and self-assured to see the need to court us. But it is still the thing to do at Easter and I really feel for those parents who cannot afford this special day out – I remember back in 1999 I admitted defeat when I saw the admission prices and prices of the showbags alone. With three kids it would have meant paying the rent or going to the show – in fact paying the rent cost a lot less!

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