-Event- Share your thoughts on the 2026 Spring Expo ~ FEEDBACK WANTED (3 Viewers)

[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!

 

[H2OHOH]

I wasn’t able to attend due to some travel, but I love the expo.

Big asterisk here because I know it’s a lot of work….but I think back in the day we did it in spring and fall. I can probably come up with many reasons we don’t….but if 450 showed up seems like there is interest. I would probably go to a quarterly show

Out of curiosity…of those 450 attendees, how many are members? Is there an opportunity here?

Love the expo. Wasn’t able to attend but it’s my adult Halloween. Love it.

 

[Nezw0001]

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

They did send samples, we included them with the raffle as we were struggling to keep them frozen.

 

[Jjdurrant]

Great show and always a good time. Food and more vendors would be cool. Like the idea of spring and fall shows!

 

[Reefer Oz]

This is great y'all! Keep the thoughts coming.

We seem to have a wonderful Expo year after year, and it seems to get incrementally better. There are definitely areas where it flops and needs improvement. But without hearing it from you, it is hard to know what will have the most impact to improve the experience. So keep the ideas and the feedback coming.

How might we get more folks to the Expo, staying longer and enjoying themselves with their families, boost membership engagement and increase the impact TCMAS has on the MN reefkeeping scene?

 

[Bschowa]

I think the swaps are great as is and everyone who helps put them on does an amazing job and puts in a ton of effort that is much appreciated. If nothing changed between this year and next I would continue to come with my family.

As a member with younger kids that enjoy the hobby I will share my thoughts and what my family does on the day of the swap and ideas of things we could change.


The swap starts at noon and we end up traveling about an hour to get there. In past years we would come in, exchange frags and then head down the road to Culver’s or McDonald’s to grab lunch (kids need to eat or get super cranky and 10:30 is too soon for lunch before we leave) depending on time frame we either eat there or bring our lunch back and eat wherever we can find seating, we do try to eat in the hallway as we are not staying at the hotel or purchasing food from the venue coffee shop so don’t want to take up table space in the lobby and wait for the 3pm raffle (don’t want to miss that)
After the raffle the building usually clears out a bit so that me and the kids can look at corals without having to fight our way to the tanks. (By this time the kids and my wife are exhausted from fighting the boredom in the hallway while I am having a blast) I buy some last minute coral and we leave.

I remember back in the day I believe at the fairgrounds there was the option of chips drink and a hotdog that you could purchase separately. Would it be possible to have access to the courtyard where a person could get a quick lunch or congregate on a nice day where a person doesn’t feel like they are clogging up the entrance way?

This years swap to me felt much bigger than those in the past, 450 people in the door is the number I have been seeing which is awesome. I would guess that the views of the club are to have people stay as long as they can to hopefully generate more sales for the vendors and potentially have more time to get the community talking and hopefully gain memberships. If that is not the goal possibly having the raffles be a form where the member/winner does not need to be present to win would help thin the crowd and not make inside the venue overwhelming to new reefers and kids? Perhaps having the members swapping table in the back of the event vs the first thing that you walk into would help that? Is it possible to get another room where there was tables and chairs where members could swap coral and chat instead of in the main room? That might help control the temperature and make the vendors tanks more approachable as well?

I did like the way that the raffle was run this year with the different time slots, I did not end up buying any corals from vendors so i am not sure if tickets were also handed out by them similar to the way reefing USA does it but that could be a possible thing to look at as well, spend x amount and get a ticket to the raffle. Did non members also get a raffle ticket with their 5$ entry fee? Transparency of the raffle could definitely be improved on, perhaps a sign next to the raffle table on how to get tickets? I would suggest becoming a member of tcmas or being a current member gets a ticket and let’s say every 20$ spent at a vendor gains you a ticket.

Having boxes for each item like in the past and tickets where you could write your name and number on them and not needing to be present to win but doing the live drawing at 3(. Maybe even livestream on Facebook?) if people wanted to be there would be a good way to keep people interested but not required to stay the whole day if they have kids throwing fits or prior obligations or even members who are just there to swap corals with other members take a quick peek at the vendors and leave because they are not fans of large crowds would still be able to get involved


As far as pre sales go I would like to see what time you are planning on being at the swap when you make your post. Not buying from members who only plan on being at the swap from 11:30 to 12:30 would solve all of these issues for me as I could show up at 2:30 when things start to die down collect my corals, buy from Vendors when you don’t have to fight the crowd, eat lunch before we come, and not leave with an angry wife over having to help wrangle kids in public for 4 hours and how much money I just spent

Again this is all coming from someone with the mindset of trying to control two younger kids who want to see the vendors tanks and pick out corals/ collect stickers. If nothing changes we will still be there next year and I appreciate all the work that goes into making these swaps a success.

 

[ichthyogeek]

How might we get more folks to the Expo, staying longer and enjoying themselves with their families, boost membership engagement and increase the impact TCMAS has on the MN reefkeeping scene?

Getting more folks to the expo:
* I know that MAS usually has stores hand out flyers. Having stores like New Wave, ReefCo, Petco Minnetonka, Rivershore, etc give out flyers that members print out and give to them, might help boost attendance.
* Speaking of MAS, it may be useful to coordinate with MAS so that both events aren't on the same day. I went to this one because I already had a few presales going on, but I would have liked to be able to go to both.

Staying longer:
* I'm probably not the target audience for this. When I go to a grocery store, I have a shopping list, I stick to it, I get my stuff, and I get out. I don't really "browse". I had my presales, I used those to get the corals I wanted, and then I left. This may in part be due to the large amounts of people as it was...quite overwhelming this year.
* With the multi-day expos/frag swaps (AquaShella, ReefStock), I think one of the bigger draws is having speaker talks. Granted, these are more like conventions than just frag swaps. They require multiple rooms, etc. That being said, it would be cool to have speakers. They don't have to be Big Names that are out of state. Some ideas: aquarists that have been in the hobby for 30+ years and building resilience; aquarists that have fish rooms and not just one tank; public aquarists and how they manage the tanks (how we can learn from that).
* I guess also speaker panels?

Family enjoyment:
* I know aquashella has a "kiddie zone", but I've never been to aquashella. Even having a little table where kids can do kid activities (coloring table, little games, etc).
* I know that my partner was very bored this year since it was a lot of standing around, and he very much doesn't have the same obsession/interest as I do with aquariums. Maybe having a "partners and spouses" area/combining that with the "kiddie zone", so that there's a dedicated "non enthusiast" section? Idk, like a coffee bar/socializing section where they can all kvetch about how crazy their partners are?

Impact:
* No idea, but I'd reach out to MAS and other larger aquarium clubs (SCMAS, PNWMAS, etc) to see what they do. It very much feels like the aquarium club as an entity is fading, and maybe it's time to re-evaluate how to boost engagement?
* Also, do we have a tiktok/instagram/Discord/Vine? If we want to boost engagement with younger hobbyists, we should very much meet them where they're at. I know that when I was a teenager, I learned about MACNA through magazines (FAMA) which was how I got most of my verified information. It only makes sense to "get with the times" and "keep up with the young'uns".

 

[spsick]

If this info helps anyone:

IKEA is across the street and has a cafeteria with yummy food for cheap. Greet place to take the kids to chill out for a while.

The hotel has catering policies which mean no food unless it’s purchased from them. It’s very expensive and would result in every expo being a greater loss than it already is. I think pizzas for the vendors at tear down is an exception and I would be happy to go grab 4 pizzas from Costco the help soften the sting of an already monumental expense for the club. 1/4 of the price of dominos and honestly better.

I would wager there is also enough volunteers to have 1 doing lunch runs for vendors if needed.