A Taste of Dublin

Ok, so I have finally recovered from A Taste of Dublin last weekend. I didn't realise being nice for 4 days was going to take so much out of me! Who would have known?

Positive points first:
The setting was great - Iveagh Gardens is a nice spot and it looked really well.
The weather held - at least until Sunday evening.
The atmosphere was great - everyone seemed to be enjoying themselves and there wasn't too much messing.
There was a decent number of people.
It was well organised.

Negative points:
My trolley got nicked - boy was I pissed off that one of my fellow exhibitors would kick me in the goolies like that on Monday morning when I needed it most. The trolley, that is, not the kick in the goolies.
We got some bottles of prosecco nicked on Friday night - primarily because we had no curtain for the first 2 days. We got one on Saturday after kicking up a big fuss.
It was expensive - both for us as exhibitors and for consumers paying into the event, the big winners in all this seem to be the organisers. OK, they have to make a profit, but if everyone feels they are getting ripped off ( there were rumblings from many corners), then it is not going to succeed long term.
For us, as a small wine importer, I feel letting O'Briens do their massive World of Wine thing sort of ruins it for the rest of us. So they can afford to pay 100K for a huge stand, great, but is it not supposed to be about interesting stuff, rather than mass market stuff?
It was hard work, but I don't mind that if there is a return. At this stage, I'm not sure there was.

The jury is definitely out!