Tickets sold out fast, but the 2026 Clicks Beauty Playground goodie bags have South Africans split on X. Here is what people are complaining about, what defenders say, and how it compares with 2024 and 2025.
Attendees queue for stalls and samples at the Clicks Beauty Playground in Johannesburg. Picture: Instagram, @clicks_sa
The Clicks Beauty Playground has never had a problem filling a room. Tickets for this year’s edition, priced at R650, sold out in record time. Fast forward to the end of the two-day event, which saw the event trending thanks to attendee meltdowns across different social media platforms.
TikTok, X and Instagram were filled with complaints that the 2026 goodie bags felt underwhelming for the price, especially next to what attendees say they received in previous years. Add long queues, limited samples and a few operational hiccups, and the mood online turned quickly.
What the 2026 bags contained
Clicks Beauty Playground attendees received two complimentary bags upon exit. Several people noted that the contents included full-size products, among them a La Roche-Posay SPF and a Eucerin body cream, and that the combined retail value comfortably exceeded the R650 ticket.
That, in fact, is part of the differing schools of thought; defenders say the maths speaks for itself while critics say maths is not the point.
“Not as big as last year” was the most repeated grievance. Even where products were full-size, some attendees said they would rather have received more items than fewer, larger ones, a point raised by beauty insider Foyin Ogunrombi (@foyinog).
Another strand of criticism is that a high retail value means little if you do not use the brands inside. One viral post doing the rounds contrasted what was handed over in the two Clicks Beauty Playground exit bags with what the poster says they had to work “ridiculously hard” for at the stalls.
A small group of people contributing to the conversation felt the event leaned heavily towards toiletries, hygiene and skincare, even going as far as jokingly calling it “personal care/hygiene playground”.
Another sore point was the long lines that limited time at stalls only to receive sample-sized items. Early complaints from eventgoers also flagged carrier bags for freebies running out.
How it compares with years
The Clicks Beauty Playground ticket price has climbed steadily over the years, going from around R350 in 2024 to R550 in 2025 and R650 this year.
Goodie bags from earlier years set high expectations. Unboxings and reviews described them as heavy hauls of toiletries, skincare, haircare and makeup that could last months (even years), with some estimates putting the 2025 bag well above the ticket price. Brands cited in those hauls included Dove, Vaseline, Auntie Jackie, Eucerin, Nivea and Sensodyne.
People defending those who were disappointed argued that the 2026 critique, then, is less “the bags are worthless” and more “the bags did not match what we had been trained to expect”.
In defence of organisers
Not everyone is buying the outrage. @Taurean_xi put it bluntly on X, posting: “The economy happened guys”, arguing that the bags were always going to differ from previous years. Others pointed to the full-size products, stall freebies, masterclasses and games, and argued that complaining after buying a ticket, knowing the brands involved, was ungrateful.
Similar freebie events, including Takealot’s House of Beauty and A Skincare Affair, have faced comparable comparisons and mixed reactions.
The view from behind the stand
Storm Stocker, owner of TBS Marketing Agency, works directly with brands that exhibit at consumer beauty events, and recently shared some insights online ahead of the event following complaints about other events as well as this year’s Clicks Beauty Playground ticket price.
She argued that the problem is less the bags than what visitors now expect from them.
Stocker did not single out the Clicks Beauty Playground, but spoke about such events in general, citing the other events in this arena as ones she has witnessed first-hand.
“People come to these events with incredibly high expectations of free products,” she says, so that “it becomes more about the free product and the bun fight for the free product than it does about the actual brands”.
She also noted that she wanted attendees to consider the costs behind the stands they see and interact with at these events, pointing to “costs involved for the venue, for the security, for all the ushers, for every single person that accepts your ticket”.
“Nobody is doing that for free. The money has got to come from somewhere.”
Smaller brands, she adds, “don’t have budgets to give loads of product away”, so what they do commit goes towards the exit bag. In her experience, “generally most times, actually every time, the goodie bag is worth so much more than your ticket price”.
Stocker acknowledged that the pressure lands on the people working the stands, describing having “personally witnessed the abuse, the attacking from consumers who have bought tickets.” She asked people viewing her video to keep in mind that when social media demands better customer service from brands, it is often “the people that are borderline abusing them in the queue” who leave teams overwhelmed.
Part of the blame, she argues, sits with social media, particularly the unboxing culture that has raised the bar for what a goodie bag should look like. Stocker’s counter-ask is a reset of expectations: visitors should attend these events to build community and enjoy a fun day out, not fight over free product.
