A conference on festivals has been told that there should be a reduction in "booze and burgers" at such events.
Dr Joseph Ruddy of the Faculty of Tourism at Dublin Institute of Technology told the annual conference of the Association of Irish Festival Events in Tralee yesterday that he would rather see "more authentic culture, more music, more dance . . . and less booze and burgers".
A wider variety of venues other than pubs and hotels was needed to cater for children's events especially, Dr Ruddy said.
Strong warnings were given at the conference about the dependence of festivals on sponsorship from the brewing and publican sector.
"In Ireland the first letter [seeking sponsorship\] goes to a brewery, not to the mayor or the local town hall," the chairman of the association, Mr Colm Croffy, said.
Sponsorship by drinks companies was a huge issue for the long-term health of festivals, Mr Croffy added. It was not a good thing to depend on any one sector, if for instance a ban on alcohol sponsorship, akin to that on smoking sponsorship, were to be introduced.
A summary of a forthcoming report by Fiona Goh Consulting entitled, Irish Festivals Irish Life, was launched at the conference.
It found that "future legislative changes regarding sponsorship by these sectors of the industry would certainly have a significant impact on the ability of festivals to continue to operate".
The report found that publicans and breweries were overrepresented as sponsors, while only 0.5 per cent of funding for festivals came from the information technology sector.
The organisers of 103 festivals, urban and rural, which took place in Ireland mainly in 2002, took part in the research. The full results of the report will be published in the coming months.
Ms Goh said her research found that voluntary contribution in areas as diverse as ushering, marketing and technical assistance were vital to festivals. Over a quarter of organisers were under the age of 25 .
The vast majority of volunteers were highly dedicated and festivals were often the hubs of the communities where they took place, the report said.
The research had also found that average insurance costs for festivals were as high as 2 per cent. However one festival had spent 33 per cent on insurance.
One of the world's leading academics in tourism events, Prof Donald Getz of the university of Calgary in Canada, said a quality assurance rating programme for festivals, similar to the grading system for hotels, needed to be developed to cater for the more sophisticated consumer.
"This is going to happen among festivals and events worldwide," Prof Getz told the association.