What's Your Experience at the Expo and What Did You Score?
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All the frags aside, I was impressed with Millsprings Academy! To bad more schools are not involved with this type of on hands learning. I will make it a point to help out where I can!
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Hate I missed the event always look forward to going to the Expo. Unfortunately had to much going on this weekend.
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I walk up to the boot and said .... teach me...... they smiled and started, was very impressed with what they had going on in their class room.
I offered a few items to donate to they up coming projects and a paid arc membership when thiers up for renewal.
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That's what I'm talking about! But would expect nothing different from you.
seth the wine guy
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Making $$$$ with all the spare time I have not having to help with events like this! I know what these folks put in to make it happen. I give them mad props.
I agree. stopped by Steve tyree booth and got to see the LE wheel of fortune first edition for 199. wallet just couldn't swallow the price tag
I'll have to agree, didn't spend too much time shopping cause I had a booth myself but what I did see was a pretty good selection. I think this event had much more than last years event, variety wise. I saw some really nice clams (a lot of them) at the Pacifica East Booth. Some wicked mushrooms at Zooanthoid.com, wild colors at Reef Shac, Murfreesburo, Black Market Reef, SEA Atlanta, Corner Cove & Hobe Sound. TankBreds display was cool to see the clownfish. Bought some stuff at Spikes, Fragin Wagon & Pacific East.
And...we had some GREAT speakers!
I saw a lot that looked pretty good, the only thing that was disappointing was the turn out. Unless we can show up for these events I feel that it's going to impact our ability to draw quality vendors to our market. Maybe timing was bad and folks just had other plans.
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I too didn't see much..........................................................that I didn't want!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
yesterday was our first event even remotely similar and we really enjoyed it. I must admit, as still newbies to the hobby, it was a little overwhelming at first, but we ended up with some great deals, and more importantly great information to take joke to our tank. We could have easily been interested longer, but we had another commitment that forced us to leave around 4. All of the vendors were not only knowledgable but friendly and homestead with us. No one tried to oversell us on something that was too expensive or too difficult for beginners. Most would even suggest an area of their stock to stick to as good for beginners it was feet to meet other members too and some other hobbyists. There is such a wealth of knowledge and it is great to tap I'm to learning from others
As for the light turn out, I do have to say it was a tough weekend, we sandwiched it between commitments but I am sure some could not. I wonder if fall would be easier to find a better weekend. Anyone with school aged kids is swamped right now until school ends. This was a busy weekend with all the things people try to fit in before Memorial Day. The spring is always tough with spring break and festivals and the end of school. With an event like this you get stuck with the best of bad options frequently.
Another thing, we noticed that we had at least 3 names for this event so maybe unifying it would help. We saw it called swap on the forums and expo several places but another flyer called it the coral farmers market. I'm not sure if it had any impact but getting the naming consistent couldn't hurt. Also the imagery the same would help people recognize signage at the event. We were familiar with Gwinnett center and had no problem, but with the event at the arena yesterday too I could see how people were confused.
Overall, we enjoyed it and cannot wait for the eject event.
As for the light turn out, I do have to say it was a tough weekend, we sandwiched it between commitments but I am sure some could not. I wonder if fall would be easier to find a better weekend. Anyone with school aged kids is swamped right now until school ends. This was a busy weekend with all the things people try to fit in before Memorial Day. The spring is always tough with spring break and festivals and the end of school. With an event like this you get stuck with the best of bad options frequently.
Another thing, we noticed that we had at least 3 names for this event so maybe unifying it would help. We saw it called swap on the forums and expo several places but another flyer called it the coral farmers market. I'm not sure if it had any impact but getting the naming consistent couldn't hurt. Also the imagery the same would help people recognize signage at the event. We were familiar with Gwinnett center and had no problem, but with the event at the arena yesterday too I could see how people were confused.
Overall, we enjoyed it and cannot wait for the eject event.
I was only able to spend about 45 minutes browsing, right at the start of the expo. I thought it was a great expo and learned quite a bit from a few of the vendors. But, my favorite vendor this year was Coral Cove. I was able to pickup some pieces I've wanted for a while and the prices were amazing!
IMO there was less selection this year than last. Still a great selection of stuff you don't see everyday. I've brought my whole family the last 2 years and we will be back next year. The kids really enjoy seeing the really colorful stuff and the clown fish.
I missed seeing the big names like WWC, Jason Fox & Gonzo that were present last year. I'd also like to see more offerings from our local vendors. Sure we can visit their local store fronts anytime but it's nice to be able to see so many offerings in one place. Like it's already been stated. If we don't show up to support them they have no incentive to come out.
I missed seeing the big names like WWC, Jason Fox & Gonzo that were present last year. I'd also like to see more offerings from our local vendors. Sure we can visit their local store fronts anytime but it's nice to be able to see so many offerings in one place. Like it's already been stated. If we don't show up to support them they have no incentive to come out.
I did more swapping with other members than I did buying vendors frags but I got a few nice pieces.
quatra colored Aussie torch & a PNG Lightning maroon clown .
I first saw the png lighting Maroon a few years ago when they we're north of 1,200$ and I thought I'd never have one based on general principle so its kinda like my unicorn fish, I did think it would exist in my tanks.
I couldn't be happier with it.
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quatra colored Aussie torch & a PNG Lightning maroon clown .
I first saw the png lighting Maroon a few years ago when they we're north of 1,200$ and I thought I'd never have one based on general principle so its kinda like my unicorn fish, I did think it would exist in my tanks.
I couldn't be happier with it.
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Great feedback, maybe moving the event to mid summer around late June through July? Also we may consider opening doors a little earlier around 10:30-11. I also think that Rit has a point about advertising. Not sure if this happened, but reaching out to our sponsor stores and having them post up flyers may attract more people. Maybe even reaching out to stores in neighboring states.
I had a perfect storm of issues:
1. I was two hours late from the opening bell (a good number of vendors I asked about smaller frag sizes said they'd sold out quick)... so no yellow hammer for me. Maybe some pacing on the vendor side would be a good idea, or a "new items added every half hour" policy among vendors could have offset this. Or I could just have left my family hanging and shown up when I knew the best stuff woulda been there. ;-)
2. I had to leave early (paged by work)... so no "make us an offer or we'll have to truck it back home" deals, either. plus I was bummed about missing Riddle's presentation. So there should have been 41 people attending that.
Honestly, with regards to these, not a big deal. Can't score the deals if you don't show up, and work is the main way I afford this hobby. Looking forward to next year's, nonetheless!
3. Absolutely NO signage in the entry levels of the venue. Heaven help you if the concierge was on a break or you weren't savvy that nobody wants to schlep a few tons of water up above ground floor level if they can help it. ;-) Only saw signs for Auction.com's event, but since I could spot the ARC registration desk from the walkway all was well. I suspect we lost a fair bit of non-member foot traffic by not having logo'd signs on the bridge/parking level.
4. Vendor grousing about poor sales - I dunno about this one. Some posts mention steady sales throughout the day, others complained they could barely cover gas money... I guess it's all in what you (as a vendor) were expecting. Plenty of booths had enough sales traffic going on that I had to wait my turn. I spent my entire budget (more than last years) due to some unexpected last minute vendor presences (thanks Doc!). I didn't come away with a lot of spectacular pieces, but definitely a bunch of things I've been wanting to try my hand at keeping or haven't seen locally. So, how much of that's supposed to be "on us" not buying enough and how much on the vendor being surprised that we're actually discerning?
To clarify... I saw PLENTY of things I'd like to have bought (a lot more unusual rhodactis/exotic mushrooms that if I had the space would have stocked up on) at just about every vendor. I also saw a lot of the same corals that are commonly available at almost every local sponsor consistently... so the urge to buy there and now was reserved in my mind for the exceptional.
Closing observation - kudos to the vendors that spent the trivial time to clearly mark prices on their wares. I had MUCH more fun at the booths where I could simply chat about the coral's needs, placement/lighting/feeding etc after already working out whether I could afford it or not. It made it a lot more about the hobby and less about the $$$. Hope that trend catches on.
EDIT: Oh... one more vote for earlier in the spring (maybe in April once the temps become a little more sane) or perhaps in June to avoid the press of graduations, ceremonies and such. No real conflicts on my own front for a few years but I can see how some could have had to pass on the event simply due to last-week-of-school stuff.
1. I was two hours late from the opening bell (a good number of vendors I asked about smaller frag sizes said they'd sold out quick)... so no yellow hammer for me. Maybe some pacing on the vendor side would be a good idea, or a "new items added every half hour" policy among vendors could have offset this. Or I could just have left my family hanging and shown up when I knew the best stuff woulda been there. ;-)
2. I had to leave early (paged by work)... so no "make us an offer or we'll have to truck it back home" deals, either. plus I was bummed about missing Riddle's presentation. So there should have been 41 people attending that.
Honestly, with regards to these, not a big deal. Can't score the deals if you don't show up, and work is the main way I afford this hobby. Looking forward to next year's, nonetheless!
3. Absolutely NO signage in the entry levels of the venue. Heaven help you if the concierge was on a break or you weren't savvy that nobody wants to schlep a few tons of water up above ground floor level if they can help it. ;-) Only saw signs for Auction.com's event, but since I could spot the ARC registration desk from the walkway all was well. I suspect we lost a fair bit of non-member foot traffic by not having logo'd signs on the bridge/parking level.
4. Vendor grousing about poor sales - I dunno about this one. Some posts mention steady sales throughout the day, others complained they could barely cover gas money... I guess it's all in what you (as a vendor) were expecting. Plenty of booths had enough sales traffic going on that I had to wait my turn. I spent my entire budget (more than last years) due to some unexpected last minute vendor presences (thanks Doc!). I didn't come away with a lot of spectacular pieces, but definitely a bunch of things I've been wanting to try my hand at keeping or haven't seen locally. So, how much of that's supposed to be "on us" not buying enough and how much on the vendor being surprised that we're actually discerning?
To clarify... I saw PLENTY of things I'd like to have bought (a lot more unusual rhodactis/exotic mushrooms that if I had the space would have stocked up on) at just about every vendor. I also saw a lot of the same corals that are commonly available at almost every local sponsor consistently... so the urge to buy there and now was reserved in my mind for the exceptional.
Closing observation - kudos to the vendors that spent the trivial time to clearly mark prices on their wares. I had MUCH more fun at the booths where I could simply chat about the coral's needs, placement/lighting/feeding etc after already working out whether I could afford it or not. It made it a lot more about the hobby and less about the $$$. Hope that trend catches on.
EDIT: Oh... one more vote for earlier in the spring (maybe in April once the temps become a little more sane) or perhaps in June to avoid the press of graduations, ceremonies and such. No real conflicts on my own front for a few years but I can see how some could have had to pass on the event simply due to last-week-of-school stuff.
I had a great time at the event. I brought my wife, and got to see a lot of the things I had come to know and love when my first reef was thriving back in San Diego. My new Atlanta tank is still wrapping up its cycle (in a diatom bloom), but I couldn't help getting a few "can't kill me" frags to get me started.
I won a raffle, the speakers were awesome, my wife had a good time getting out of the house and "doing something together", and I got to learn a good bit.
Suggestions?
1) Maybe any extra raffle ticket for each frag you bring, and when you win a raffle, you can choose a frag off the "swap" table, or the door prize. Although it was already a little cumbersome listening for my ticket number for hours.
2) In response to listening to too many raffle numbers, maybe have us put our names on back of the tickets (there's a spot for it), so we can just respond to our names being called. It's much easier to shop/conversate and listen for your name, rather than "98005".
3) I know I'm uniquely green since my reef isn't really up yet, but the livestock was so geared toward the few most popular corals, that it looked like stuff like leathers were the rare ones. The coolest things I got were 1) Green Nephthea Leather that someone cut out of their tank, and 2) dragon's breath macroalgae glued to a rock, also from someone's tank.
At the end of the day, I loved it, but my suggestion to increase foot traffic? Get people to show up by amping up the "fragswap"/coral fleamarket aspect of things, and then trick them into seeing the "ooh shiny's" brought by the vendors. I bet there were a lot of people who just said "I don't have a spare $100 right now to buy from vendors, so I'm not going", but everyone knows we love to use the most innocuous reasons to show up and spend $100 anyway.
I won a raffle, the speakers were awesome, my wife had a good time getting out of the house and "doing something together", and I got to learn a good bit.
Suggestions?
1) Maybe any extra raffle ticket for each frag you bring, and when you win a raffle, you can choose a frag off the "swap" table, or the door prize. Although it was already a little cumbersome listening for my ticket number for hours.
2) In response to listening to too many raffle numbers, maybe have us put our names on back of the tickets (there's a spot for it), so we can just respond to our names being called. It's much easier to shop/conversate and listen for your name, rather than "98005".
3) I know I'm uniquely green since my reef isn't really up yet, but the livestock was so geared toward the few most popular corals, that it looked like stuff like leathers were the rare ones. The coolest things I got were 1) Green Nephthea Leather that someone cut out of their tank, and 2) dragon's breath macroalgae glued to a rock, also from someone's tank.
At the end of the day, I loved it, but my suggestion to increase foot traffic? Get people to show up by amping up the "fragswap"/coral fleamarket aspect of things, and then trick them into seeing the "ooh shiny's" brought by the vendors. I bet there were a lot of people who just said "I don't have a spare $100 right now to buy from vendors, so I'm not going", but everyone knows we love to use the most innocuous reasons to show up and spend $100 anyway.
So I attended from Augusta. Atlanta is my usual stop to buy , if I could not find things in LFS. This time I was looking for some low-end corals. Yes I got some good deals and some OK ones. But I was surprised at the number of vendors. I have been to Carolina Aquarium Expo before, ( columbia SC ) . Its a small reef club with few local volunteers. But, there were so many vendors in that expo. In columbia I was able to buy Rainbow BTA for 30 $ and they were good sizes(also blue sympodium for 10$ ) . Then there were these small-time vendors from the east coast who had so many oddball inverts, sponges,CUC etc. Also Seachem had discounted products there.They have already put the list of vendors in their site. May be we can bring those to ours next time. Oh one great thing I liked this time were members booths. They were reasonably priced and came with good advice!!!
