My bitch is that a food and wine event that used to be free and fantastic is now a ticketed event...and freaking expensive.
No more free and ... sorry to hear that. Who used to sponsor it?
Really can't remember, but when it started, I think about 5 years ago, it was a free event at the Convention Centre....you could float around, taste wines, condiments, cheese, food, at every stand. I got to take my daughter to see cooking sessions with well known Australian chefs, and up and coming chefs. I don't even think the website was more than a couple of pages, not much info and it was very unknown.
It's a money making machine now.
Now it's like presale tickets are now online just for entry, plus on top of entry fee any sessions (only 30mins) with celebrity chefs are around $30 each. That's presale visa price, so they will be actually more than that when the whole lot of tickets are released.
I think it would be hard for any of the genuinely small, boutique food and wine suppliers that used to be there to be able to afford a stand there nowadays.