The National Ploughing Championships is not moving towards cashless-only payments for tickets.
National Ploughing Association Assistant Managing Director Anna Marie McHugh was speaking amid concern that tickets for this year's event would only be available with cards.
Irish Rural Association Spokesperson Jackie Flannery told The Hard Shoulder some people are upset.
"What we're actually finding is people are very, very put out by all of this," she said.
"They can't use their cash, and at the end of the day we're still using cash as a legal tender.
"It's a very serious issue, it's upsetting a lot of people.
"We should be able to use our cash and that's the big problem."
Health and safety
Ms McHugh said it is part of a new health and safety measure to avoid hitting capacity.
"If you hit your capacity you have to close the gates and you have to tell people they can't come in," she said.
"We actually had consultations with the emergency services... and we were very strongly advised that because of what happened we really should be ticket-only this year and go [to] online ticketing."
Ms McHugh said there is no move towards a cashless event.
"The term has been used 'cashless' - the association has never said we're cashless," she said.
"Anyone can come to our door and buy a ticket with cash or a postal order or a cheque.
"If there's a surplus of tickets on the day, they will be sold by card or by cash."
'It's about headcount'
Ms McHugh said it is about forward planning.
"We cannot turn people away at the gate because of the traffic plan for the event," she said.
"The plan is there's a traffic route in and then it's reversed at lunchtime and the traffic is out.
"We can't just let the general public come to the gate and find 'You've tipped over the number'.
"That would be a very, very bad organisational thing to do on our behalf.
"It's totally about headcount," she added.
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