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Easter Egg Hunts are all the rage. Pubs, restaurants, and cafes all over Australia have cottoned on to the fact that offering free Easter egg hunts attracts the crowds…and with that hungry customers. But in many cases, these egg hunts are not cracked up to what they promise and leave a stink of bad publicity, empty baskets and hysterical kids in their wake.

I remarked to my hubby that we could spend the whole Easter weekend egg hunt hopping….but after one organised free hunt, we were left traumatised and egg-less and very unhappy. I get that the egg hunts are generally free so maybe I shouldn’t expect much. But really, if you’re going to host an event (even if there is no charge), make sure it’s well organised and that you have enough chocolate loot for all the kids.

Egg-streme Disapointment

It was a gorgeous day at Watsons Bay, on Sydney’s eastern beaches and hundreds of kids milled around the crowded pub waiting for the Easter bunny for the ‘alleged’ hunt. I say ‘alleged hunt’ ’cause once the kids were directed to the park opposite the pub, there were no eggs to be hunted. The Easter Bunny obviously did not get the memo of how an egg hunt works because he pretty much ran around the park hurling tiny eggs into the air while kids scrambled all around him and chased him like the Pied Piper. It would have been quite comical to watch from a distance but if you had kids in amongst the throng, it was anything but funny. And within minutes, the clearly harrassed bunny showed the crowd his empty basket and after posing for a few pics couldn’t hop away quick enough. I don’t blame the rabbit for scarpering – there were a lot of grumpy kids and angry parents in lynch mob mode.

Thank goodness there was a friendly Watsons Bay Hotel staffer hanging around with a satchel full of eggs which she distributed to the disappointed kids.

It’s Not About The Chocolate

Don’t get me wrong – it’s not about the chocolate! You can buy a whole bag of mini Easter eggs for a dollar or two. It’s about the adventure, the thrill of the hunt and having something fun to do with the family. But of course, there’s no point having an Easter egg hunt if there aren’t any eggs to be hunted and these popular spots have messed up in an egg-streme way.

Egg-ceptional Disaster

Another egg-ceptional Easter disaster happened at the Grounds of Alexandria – a popular, trendy and supposedly family-friendly cafe in Sydney.

The egg hunt was advertised as a massive collaboration between the cafe and Cadbury’s with a promise of 15,000 choccy eggs being hidden throughout the garden and laneways for eager egg hunters to find. Well, organisers were left with stinky egg on their face as customers took to facebook to express their intense disappointment.

According to the facebook comments, the hoards of kids crowded along the busy road waiting for the egg hunt to begin – which was supposed to get started at the crazily-early time of 8:30am. 20 minutes late to start, the eggs were scattered around the entry and the first few lucky kids nabbed them all. It was all over in 10 minutes and kids were left egg-free and traumatised by the sheer crowds.

“It was a great plot to get a whole lot of hungry people in that place at one time but when you see the people who had massive buckets full of eggs running for the exits once they were done just proves its all a shamble,” said one angry parent.

Greedy Parents & Their Kids

Many parents joined in the criticism with some saying that they were disgusted by the parents of a few kids who had bucket-fulls of eggs making a hurried hop to the exit, while hundreds of other kids went eggless.

“Shame on the greedy kids and their parents who let them behave that way! I saw a young child with a really full basket of eggs with his mother desperately searching for more! Disgusting behaviour,” remarked a disgruntled parent.

What made it even worse, was that customers had to register for the event but apparently the venue didn’t even check for tickets – which totally defeats the point of this kind of control.

Charge!

We say charge for these events! No parent would have an issue paying $5 or $10 for an egg hunt, as long as it was well organised and their kids could actually get an egg or two. Many professionally-organised hunts are divided into session times and each session is number-restricted to avoid crowds and chaos. Grounds of Alexandria should learn from their mistakes and try this tactic next year.

The Grounds Of Alexandria responded on their facebook page with a prompt apology:

“An Easter egg hunt without any Easter eggs. Kinda like Christmas without presents, Halloween without treats (or tricks) or peas without carrots. We never anticipated the amount of people that would attend our Easter egg hunt today and a lot of people left angry and disappointed…and most importantly kids left without chocolate.

To those we disappointed, we apologise from the bottom of our hearts and would love if you reached out to us with your details so that we can make this up to you.”

A parent has replied that the Grounds had promptly delivered 2 bags of Easter eggs to their house as a way of apology.

It may take them a little while to hop back from this eggs-plosive egg hunt.

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  • Oh dear. thankfully I never took part in things like this. We just had our own private Easter Egg hunt and three happy kids.

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  • I think these commercial ventures end up with kids getting disappointed or over-greedy. There’s no winning in my opinion.

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  • We always had a hunt in our own yard – lot less hassle and no traumas.

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  • I’ve never taken my kids to an Easter Egg hunt. I’ve seen the chaos and the upset kids to ever want to put my kids through this. I preferred to hide eggs around the yard for my kids. At least I knew they’d get eggs.

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  • One year we were away on a holiday and staying in accommodation in a really large motel. There was a supply of Easter Eggs in the Dining Room. Some adults were walking out with a few both large and small Easter eggs (plus what their children were carrying too). Many other children would have loved a small Easter Egg but missed out. We were later told that had they been limited to one each there was enough for one each person plus a few spares in case any got smashed and little kids got too distressed.

    Reply

  • We go to a Easter egg hunt every year that is packed with kids to be expected! my boys and I were pushed over a few times which distressed my at the time 3yr old.
    Luckily the 3rd yr onwards that they put the event on they have given the kids a special needs category (my 2 older sons have autism) which is a lovely slower paced one for them with no pushing and shoving with only up to 10kids in it :)

    Reply

  • If you buy tickets, you know how many kids will attend the event. And so you can plan how many eggs to hide. There must be enough. Some kids will surely find more than others, but every kid must find something! So upsetting to see kids crying because they didn’t find anything.

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  • They should have organized it better.

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  • I do my own Easter egg hunts in the bush – we go somewhere nice for a picnic (or we’re already camping) and then I hide the eggs for just my 2 kids. There are never any crowds and my kids have a great time. I think this is way better. I buy a big bag of mini eggs for a couple dollars and have enough for my Easter cooking as well. Also, I note that these events were in Sydney. There in lies the problem. Everywhere in Sydney is over crowded. Get out to the country and get away from it all.

    Reply

  • We went to a remax event and they put out icy pole sticks and limit you to find 10 of them per child and one they are found you head off to the organisers in the tent at the end of the trail and each child receives a Bach of Easter eggs and everyone is happy

    Reply

  • We went to an egg hunt at play group years ago and the kid had to find cardboard eggs them had to hand them in for a stamp on the hand and little bag of eggs the kids loved it. Once the cardboard were handed in they were hidden again. All kids only got one bag of eggs

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  • Parents and kids are left disappointed and traumatised because they didn’t get (enough) Easter eggs ? I don’t have much sympathy for this type of greed.
    Sorry, but there are people in the world who have no single grain of rice to eat and are starving….

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  • Oh we spoil kids too much…. can’t they have a egg hunt that isn’t chocolate filled !? My kids enjoy treasure hunts even when it is non edible, just special rocks… keep it simple people.

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  • If you advertise an event you need to back it up properly.


    • I agree – all that is needed is good planning and to follow a schedule and to outline rules.

    Reply

  • Same thing happened to us when my daughter was little. Many older children walked away with heaps of eggs, whilst some of the younger ones had none – very disappointing and we didn’t go back.

    Reply

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