Agreed about greed. About the only thing us poor folks can do is window shop. I'm expecting them to start putting up a curtain in the windows and charge passers-by for a peek. I definitely will NOT be a Peeping Tom(mette) if I have to pay for it. Free is okay.
It just happens all the time and it's annoying. We used to have a great music festival up in the mountains, where, yes...the smell of marijuana was in the air, but there were great little stalls, handicrafts, food, just really lovely. Then it became too big for the little town it was held in. So we had this beautiful little folk festival, and now this is what it has turned into;
http://www.woodfordfolkfestival.com/main/index.php?cID=1925&menuID=168&apply=&webpage=defaultThere's nothing that resembles what it was or the spirit of what it started as.
Same with our Greek Festival. When I went in 1998, it was this beautiful Autumn day, we went for a peek and ended up drunk on too many fee samples of greek wine, eating marinated octupus on a rug....being ferried home by our friends boyfriend and his friend because we were all too drunk to drive. (We had originally gone to West End for a brunch coffee, then thought we might wander over and check it out). Brilliant little festival. Again, now it is a machine....and the experience you would have there now is quite different to the spirit in which it started.
It's nice when things are popular and successful. It's just when the hordes discover it and it morphs into something which resembles nothing of the original intent annoys me.
Maybe I'm just getting old!