-Event- Share your thoughts on the 2026 Spring Expo ~ FEEDBACK WANTED (1 Viewer)

[Reefer Oz]

The 2026 Spring Expo last Saturday was a bang up gathering of over 450 reefers and coral curious folks. The vibe was hype and the coral was hot!

Where YOU up amongst it!?! Tell us what you thought of the Expo. Here is a quick survey for anyone interested:

TCMAS Spring Expo Feedback Survey

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But also please weigh in here. Share what you liked best about the Expo, tell us what we need to do better and if there are any suggestions on things to include or do different.......we want to know!!

 

[Reefer Oz]

To get the juices flowing here are my personal thoughts:

I really liked the layout with the center run of vendors; It made for a nice loop to flow through. It was great to see a number of families with the kids along; get em intrigued early! The raffle drawings periodically were nice; better than making people wait/return. The microscopy setup @clownfish29 had was a nice little touch; fascinating way to kill a few minutes and take a break from the actinic light.

Definitely need to revisit the pre-sale forum intent and goals; there was a lot of misunderstanding this year. The raffle was a bit disorganized; not very clear what/when/how to participate. It got really warm in the venue; a bit uncomfortable for the duration. TCMAS merch was lacking; I bet folks would buy t-shirts and hats.

Next year, what if we had a balloon artist? What if we had a food vendor? What if there were more frequent and smaller giveaways? What if we had some fans set up? What if we had more vendors? What if we did an event with MAS (they had one the same day)?

 

[Crum]

Don't pick the warmest day in months next time!

I thought this year was great, I actually liked the layout we had more space than usual which was nice.
Food/snacks/drinks for vendors would be great too, we aren't always able to leave our spot during the show.

I definitely will plan on bringing more fish and inverts next year.

 

[MistakesWereMade]

I enjoyed the expo. I think the vendors had a lot of variety. The space works well with how everything was set up this year. If nothing changed from this year to next year, I would still look forward to it.

I was able to find my pre-sale items rather quickly. The 'dedicated' space gets a little crowded as people are trying to navigate from person to person with no real organization. It was a nice little space for people to gather and BS a little.

This year I attended with my son and a friend that has a tank. He is not a member, so he paid the $5 for entry and received a ticket. I had no idea what that ticket was for. I volunteered for setup the night before and had no idea what we had for raffle/door prizes. I actually missed even seeing the TCMAS table. It usually is more about getting people to sign up but there isn't the draw to the table. Not entirely sure how to do this. I know the food thing has been brought up in the past and it is somewhat restricted from the venue.

Some possible ideas:

• I know we had a merch option at one point was available to order but maybe do something prior with only a few options (t-shirt/polo/tank towel) that we can pay for prior but pickup at the show.
• Not sure if there was a water cooler there this year that the venue provided, but maybe that or hand out water bottles.
• I like the idea of a small TCMAS sponsored frag tank. Get some donated frags and either add to raffle or door prizes or whatever.
• Sample give aways could help. Maybe invite a rep for fish food. I came across this in the past but not sure what the logistics are for it: https://www.hikariusa.com/club_reg.html

I know some of these ideas require more planning and the BOD takes care of most of it prior to the event. I think engaging with the event committee a few months in advance would be the only way to really making some of these feasible, so the BOD isn't overwhelmed by responsibilities.

Overall, had a great time. Glad I could see and chat with people in person. Always appreciate the effort from the BOD and volunteers that always seem to show up to make sure the event turns out great for everyone.

 

[ichthyogeek]

I found it a bit hard to communicate with the people I was swapping stuff with: part of that is on me for not being more clear prior to the swap. But it was hard to ID who was who. I know there were name tags, maybe it’d be good to enforce that a bit more? It felt like people were surreptitiously trying to figure out if a person was a person doing a swap a lot during the first hour or two.

Would it be possible to get a presale-vendor/sponsor forum, in addition to our current presale forum between members/community? And have different rules for vendors vs regular people? I feel that might reduce some of the friction we saw this year regarding vendors buying hobby frags, and hobbyists swapping hobbyist frags.

I agree that food should be offered to the vendors, or even if the vendors want to pool their money/get a volunteer to get food for the vendors (and be reimbursed by the vendors if they’re pooling money for it). I would be down to contribute a small amount of money or my time for this next year as well.

I did enjoy the show, and especially enjoyed setting up. It’s always nice to connect with the community, and I like that I’m starting to remember people’s faces to names.

One thing I noticed is that vendors were surprised that volunteers were so eager to help out with setup. Maybe it should be better communicated that there are Very Eager Volunteers to help out during setup the night before? Another issue I noted was the lack of heaters/a desire for more heaters to rapidly heat water for vendors.

 

[nox.rupaw]

Sample give aways could help. Maybe invite a rep for fish food. I came across this in the past but not sure what the logistics are for it

I know the owner of Mermaids Delight pretty well https://www.mermaidsdelightfood.com/ ... they compete with Rods mainly. They had given me 15-20 frozen food samples a couple years ago that i had distributed amongst tcmas members . Can always ask him to send more samples over next year .

Maybe have it shipped over to some other member ? my hands (and car) is already full on the day off

 

[ichthyogeek]

I know the owner of Mermaids Delight pretty well https://www.mermaidsdelightfood.com/ ... they compete with Rods mainly. They had given me 15-20 frozen food samples a couple years ago that i had distributed amongst tcmas members . Can always ask him to send more samples over next year .

Maybe have it shipped over to some other member ? my hands (and car) is already full on the day off

Reef Nutrition also does a lot of shows, it would be cool if they could come as well!