@Trion66 ....like 0Brooders0 said, ignore it and try to get most of the new premium characters that are part of the event currency. There is another way to speed up the process for the act prizes is by doing the donut rush if you take most of the new characters or not all. A lot of players do that way as if they just like to get it done out of the way and not take the time to do it. Its like they just want those prizes right a way. Just make sure you got a lot of donuts (if you got like up to 10000 donuts or more).
I'm not crazy about the use of the bonus area either. I had to do it in Bart Royale because I didn't want Ice Bishop and also those two boys.
Although, I didn't really have to use it much in the Springfield Jobs and the major events after that as I had bought all new characters (that were part of the event currency) and did some of the donut rush for the act prizes.
Thinking about not crafting much for the bonus as I'm not a fan of it but would take the new buildings or new character skins that may be in the crafting area for major events.
For this event.....it seems that the currency for each characters (part of the currency) doesn't increase as the bonus area increases (mine is up to about 37%) so maybe I'll take it easy on that in the 3rd act and focus on getting more pickaxes.