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-Event- 2025 Expo Survey (1 Viewer)

spsick

spsick

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If you attended the Expo this year, please take 2 minutes to fill out the survey. It helps us improve the event for YOU!

TCMAS Expo 2025 Member Survey

www.surveymonkey.com www.surveymonkey.com

So far we’ve heard the trading area needed more light. We will work on that. The tough part is the dry good vendors, raffle, and trading areas need light but the coral vendors are vampires.


We have also heard the raffle could be better. We had a large variety of reef-related items there and encourage folks to look it over more next year. There was a good amount of high ticket items worth $300+ with a high chance of winning and low raffle ticket price. TCMAS is a nonprofit and runs off donations, sponsorships, and paid supporters so we have to balance the cost of the event carefully.

We also welcome public discussion here!
 
spsick said:
If you attended the Expo this year, please take 2 minutes to fill out the survey. It helps us improve the event for YOU!

TCMAS Expo 2025 Member Survey

www.surveymonkey.com www.surveymonkey.com

So far we’ve heard the trading area needed more light. We will work on that. The tough part is the dry good vendors, raffle, and trading areas need light but the coral vendors are vampires.


We have also heard the raffle could be better. We had a large variety of reef-related items there and encourage folks to look it over more next year. There was a good amount of high ticket items worth $300+ with a high chance of winning and low raffle ticket price. TCMAS is a nonprofit and runs off donations, sponsorships, and paid supporters so we have to balance the cost of the event carefully.

We also welcome public discussion here!
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Were there any comments around "what" could've been better about the raffle?
 
Is there anything stopping us from having one year of TCMAS membership as a raffle item in the future? I know it's not high dollar, high appeal like a tank, but seems like a low hanging fruit that might get people to either join forum if they aren't already?
 
SheldonC_ said:
Is there anything stopping us from having one year of TCMAS membership as a raffle item in the future? I know it's not high dollar, high appeal like a tank, but seems like a low hanging fruit that might get people to either join forum if they aren't already?
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Sounds fine to me.
 
I think it was good overall. Maybe move the trading section closer to dry goods if lighting was an issue. I think you guys did a great job personally
 
I enjoyed this event very much. plenty of gathering sitting to BS. Nice tables for frag trade. Lighting I would think would be indifferent as whatever is being traded was already seen in pics and the coral wont be open anyway. If moving it closer to the dry good works then simple fix.
Thank you all who put this on and volunteered. I had to much going on to help, but I will try in the fall. Location was nice too.. Sorry missed the Survey.
 
Livestuff said:
I enjoyed this event very much. plenty of gathering sitting to BS. Nice tables for frag trade. Lighting I would think would be indifferent as whatever is being traded was already seen in pics and the coral wont be open anyway. If moving it closer to the dry good works then simple fix.
Thank you all who put this on and volunteered. I had to much going on to help, but I will try in the fall. Location was nice too.. Sorry missed the Survey.
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@Adam Wendlandt had a good idea, he suggested we switch to a "meat raffle" style raffle so people don't have to stay the whole time to get value from their raffle tickets. How this would work is we would raffle one item maybe every 30 min or so. We'd have the item up for raffle front and center, and the next ones laid out, so people know whats up next. Once a given number of tickets is sold(maybe 50?), we raffle the item.

I think this has some real benefits. First it keeps the energy up throughout the whole event. Second, it captures tickets from people who don't want to stay the whole time and third, it spreads the work load out.

what do you all think?
 
Nezw0001 said:
@Adam Wendlandt had a good idea, he suggested we switch to a "meat raffle" style raffle so people don't have to stay the whole time to get value from their raffle tickets. How this would work is we would raffle one item maybe every 30 min or so. We'd have the item up for raffle front and center, and the next ones laid out, so people know whats up next. Once a given number of tickets is sold(maybe 50?), we raffle the item.

I think this has some real benefits. First it keeps the energy up throughout the whole event. Second, it captures tickets from people who don't want to stay the whole time and third, it spreads the work load out.

what do you all think?
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I second this. Having spent time around the raffle ticket this past expo, there were a large amount of people that were interested in a ticket, but didn't want to stay until the end for the raffle. This was especially true for people who got there right when the doors open. It almost gives them (early goers) a disadvantage to being early with how the current structure works.
 
I like the meat raffle concept, BUT....it makes the ticket selling an active instead of passive chore. Remember, in a meat raffle (at least those that I've gone to), everyone is sitting around tables, chatting, drinking, eating, and people walk around and sell tickets. In our case, people don't want to get bothered while they are looking at vendors, etc. I would even argue that people won't pay attention to @Reefer Oz yelling out announcements.

Not saying it isn't doable, but I don't think it is as easy as raising money in a bar.
 
zoolan70 said:
I like the meat raffle concept, BUT....it makes the ticket selling an active instead of passive chore. Remember, in a meat raffle (at least those that I've gone to), everyone is sitting around tables, chatting, drinking, eating, and people walk around and sell tickets. In our case, people don't want to get bothered while they are looking at vendors, etc. I would even argue that people won't pay attention to @Reefer Oz yelling out announcements.

Not saying it isn't doable, but I don't think it is as easy as raising money in a bar.
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Great points.
 
What if prizes had set times they were announced? You can go for the ones you know you'll be there for. Like a round of raffles at 1, 2 and 3 pm

Or, I think this is what MAS does/has done, announce them all after the event and have the winners pick them up another time. Or even ship them.
 
Crum said:
What if prizes had set times they were announced? You can go for the ones you know you'll be there for. Like a round of raffles at 1, 2 and 3 pm

Or, I think this is what MAS does/has done, announce them all after the event and have the winners pick them up another time. Or even ship them.
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I think that might drive more sales (later pickup) but we have historically tried to avoid that due to the work involved.

I do think that for hard goods, coming from vendors/partners/sponsors, we could just go virtual. For example, if BRS is giving away an Apex setup, we just have a sign at the expo, and we send BRS the contact info for the person who wins. That would be pretty light from an effort perspective on our side, but opens up the raffle to anyone who comes through, regardless of time.

We would need to change the raffle ticket format. We somehow need to connect the ticket that gets put in the box to a person's contact information. I've seen in the past when you write your number and name on every ticket, but that's a pain when you buy 50 tickets. I'm sure there is an easy way to solve that, but we should think about it sooner rather than later.
 
Have we considered an entirely digital raffle platform? Take the guess work out entirely on having to write down a name/number on 50 tickets.
 
zoolan70 said:
I think that might drive more sales (later pickup) but we have historically tried to avoid that due to the work involved.

I do think that for hard goods, coming from vendors/partners/sponsors, we could just go virtual. For example, if BRS is giving away an Apex setup, we just have a sign at the expo, and we send BRS the contact info for the person who wins. That would be pretty light from an effort perspective on our side, but opens up the raffle to anyone who comes through, regardless of time.

We would need to change the raffle ticket format. We somehow need to connect the ticket that gets put in the box to a person's contact information. I've seen in the past when you write your number and name on every ticket, but that's a pain when you buy 50 tickets. I'm sure there is an easy way to solve that, but we should think about it sooner rather than later.
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I know it's way out of the way but I'd be happy to hold products at the shop, even ship them if TCMAS wants to cover the cost. (Like 10-20$ if I use speedee or UPS ground)
 
I like a few of these ideas and it actually provides quite a bit of versatility. It would drastically depend on how many items are in the raffle but spreading them out over the course of the day just brings more attention to them. It can also be a way to announce upcoming items to help trigger ticket sales. The main thing here is that it allows for people who don't want to stay until the end to participate. This would be great for the hard goods that get donated. People have something they can see, get excited about, and bring home that day.

We could also incorporate vendor 'donations' as prizes. Say a vendor is willing to donate a '$50 credit'. It wouldn't need to be a specific item/coral; the winner could just take the voucher over to the vendor after winning and pick something. This would be great for an early raffle prize.

Could also incorporate 'do not need to be present' gift card prizes that can be emailed to winners. Tickets entries need to have contact information entered on if not going to be present. No contact information provided and not present just results in forfeiture and another ticket is drawn.
 
I do not know the legal ramifications of some of these ideas. The idea of a virtual raffle sounds the most likely to be a problem

State gambling board site needs to be consulted.

For example, tickets have to be paid in cash per the state rules.

Not meaning to be a downer, love the discussion, just sharing what has been run into during previous discussions of changing the raffle up
 
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