Liz I don't deny that you do help out doing stuff like clearing up, but I know of plenty of people who just take the free ticket & never think any more about it than it is their entitlement because their significant other is the one working.

It is a two sided coin with people getting free/reduced tickets as has been said if people are having to work at festivals most weekends then they may not get to see their partners/families without the free tickets.

And quite honestly I know that if partners of our team didn't get reduced tickets then we often wouldn't get many of our team to go to festivals, leaving families at home is not an option for many of them.

But I still think that festivals lose out on the genuine crafters. The craft tent at Chippers was quite honestly awful this year with the exception of a couple of stalls everything was imported tat. I was caught out by buying some things that I thought were handmade only to find the inevitable Made in China label when I looked later.