I just went to a festival that had only this brand for even regular still water, no water bottles with a cap. It was insanely irritating to not be able to just hang on to a bottle of water in my bag and pull it out whenever to take a sip, you have to just sit there and drink the whole water at once. Or toss it and spend another $6 to buy another can of water when you’re thirsty again. A small problem as problems go but frustrating at the time!
I work as a bartender in a live music venue in the Netherlands.
We, just like most festivals, used to always remove the caps from the water bottles, citing safety concerns (people would drop the bottle when empty but put the cap on, which is a nasty tripping hazard).
So a company started to make bottlecaps that clip to your pants, and most water vendors used a single size opening, which made this feasible. People held on to their cap, and could pause drinking.
Then water companies started to attach the cap to the bottle, to prevent litter, and the government issuing a mandate requiring us to charge per plastic unit.
So now we leave the caps on, but as guests return about 95% of bottles and cups to the bar (buying a drink without having a cup adds a 1 eur plastic surcharge), the safety hazard is basically gone.
As a bartender, I'd very much prefer bottles of water to cans. It allows guests to drink at their leasure, they're easier to transport and can't cause as much harm as a can (either by throwing or when squeezing it).
They are slightly visually less appealing than a cool can though, I'll give them that.
Yes and the extremely thin plastic that the bottles are made of these days cracks and lets that air out as soon as force is applied.
Maybe you all drink Dasani exclusively or something, but most bottled water these days comes in plastic that's as thin as tissue paper. I have had that shit crack in my hands.
A lot of festivals in the US had problems with heat stroke in the late 90's and early 2000's. The two solutions were to either give out free water or allow people to bring in their own water.
The festival organizers generally chose supplying free water.
The festival specifically didn’t allow this either, they want you to spend your money inside the festival. I actually did bring my own water bottle anyway because I carry an electrolyte drink with me everywhere to help with a medical condition. The guy checking bags gave me a hard time but I stood my ground and brought it in. But they don’t make it easy
Oh we're definitely both in agreement that they're being dicks. My issue is that the original comment I replied to is essentially victim blaming folks by saying "all you need to do is not consent, boom, problem instantly solved".
Based on everyone else's input (notably OP neglected to reply), it's clear that the best you can do is not go to the venue and hope that results in systemic change.