Summer Festival "Suggested Donation" Suggestion: Go F*** Yourself!

The following is a mid-summer discussion regarding the various local street fest prices of admission that go share the religious side-step of donations rather than charges for admission. Every festival and block party had them this year.
P: This entry donation business to get in is BS. Charge me or don’t. I pay, but my friends choose not to, and they get an earful as they are walking through the gate. Is that worth it?

D: I agree, that "suggested donation" stuff is kinda crap. they need to charge to make the money, but legally they can't stop you from walking down the street so it's a donation.

P: They make a lot of money off of beer though. Four of us in a two hour span down 20 beers at $4 a pop. Using tickets really can become deceiving. They would’ve done better if they had better food. I was willing to try the Grouper Quesadilla, but wasn’t hungry. I guess the overall problem with the [blank] Fest is that there is no theme. It’s just a reason to put a stage up and tents. Another thing about the suggested donation. If it is a donation, I want a wristband. There has to be a tally of people who paid. If you are rubber stamping my hand, there is no way of knowing that money just made it into the box. If you give away 1000 writstbands, there better be $5000 in that box.

D: Yeah, the wristband would make sense. it gets pretty easy to scam those things with tickets. at [blank] fest the huge plastic steins are supposed to be $8 each and by the end of the day we'd pay for 3 with around $12. Each book has 5 tickets on it with a cardboard backer, so you take the first 2 off and pass off 3 as 5, and then as the day goes on you just convince the people you only have $12 left and politely ask for 3 refills, they'll give 'em to ya.

P: The other problem is that so few restaurants contribute, rather than many setting up tents. There were tents, but the folks were just volunteers. They had Maxwell street polish, 4 tickets for a 6 inch and 7 tickets for a horsec*ck. Kinda pricy, but people will pay for food when they are drunk. The Asian food tent had good looking stuff, but again, bud light took precedent.

It is agreed that the city cannot charge you for walking down the sidewalk, where many of these fests are located. We may come and go as we please, but we should not be badgered and chastized for not contributing. There are laws in Chicago to prevent homeless people from harassing for money. This law should be in effect for gate keepers as well. If they put more than just a stamp on our hand, we would trust the system. If the destination of the donations was a little more clear than just a historical society or for "cancer", people may be more willing to give. A party at a southern Illinois college was straight forward with the slogan they had: "My girlfriend got a ticket and we are trying to pay it off."