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Macna Fail

Trio91

Administrator
Moderator
Is anyone else hearing/seeing that Macna this year was a bust? I was looking at Youtube videos and the floor seemed empty in each one. Some articles that I read pretty much said the same too.

I also just a thread on a forum on how there may have been a scam going on with the raffles...:cop:

I was upset that I didn't go but with my kid's school starting, I didn't have the time. I guess I really didn't miss anything.
 

etmanning1

NJRC Member
Zoas Grow Out Winner
Now that you bring it up, I don’t remember hearing much of anything about macna this year. Odd.


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I havent gotten to see the videos yet, but i really wanted to go due to the number of speakers, hopefully they got a decent turnout for them.
 
Saturday the show floor was very busy. Nothing can be as busy as NY Reefapalooza, people don't have to fly to that! What really disappointed me was the poor attendance and many of the lectures/presentations. Great stuff, big experts , talking to a sparse room. Only few people like Mr. Saltwater Tank got a full audience.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
Where is the raffle scam thread? I love good reef drama.

I wonder if the change of venue to Orlando next year will help. We are planning on going.
 
I thought it was only me that saw that the floor looked dead from the YouTube videos I saw. I had friends who went and said the show was more fun to meet youtubers than equipment and corals and it was largely dead.


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diana a

Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
The volunteers were compensated for there hours. Many of them spent hours working. If a volunteer gets compensated with some tickets and buys more tickets, then yes the volunteers will have a higher likely hood of winning. Some adults can act like children when they don't win/get their way. The volunteers doesn't get to enjoy the show like the public
 

MadReefer

Vice President
Staff member
NJRC Member
Moderator
I don't understand how they knew they were volunteers. At RAP we were specifically told to remove the volunteer/staff T-shirt if you purchased raffle tickets when the raffle was being done.
 

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
I think it was a terrible judgement call to give out raffle tickets to volunteers. It just looks bad and it turns into drama threads like this. As others mentioned in that thread, there will always be people saying raffles are fixed, but the complaints persists if you give them ammo like this.

I feel really bad for the guy who won the Fiji trip and drew another ticket. I think he did he best to avoid a bad situation but he should have never been put in that situation.

You live and learn and hopefully they do not give out tickets to volunteers next year
 

Trio91

Administrator
Moderator
I don't understand how they knew they were volunteers. At RAP we were specifically told to remove the volunteer/staff T-shirt if you purchased raffle tickets when the raffle was being done.
They solicited a local club for volunteers, a local Las Vegas Club (I think). In their case, MACNA gave them the tix as compensation so there really wasn't a need to hide it.
 
Giving them the raffle tickets to the volunteers is also the most cost effective way too, since they're not paying them anything monitarily.. just offering them a chance to win something.
 
I saw a guy put over $600 of tickets into the raffle box for the Neptune Apex. He told me he got the tickets for compensation for working the show. HE DIDN'T WIN!!! The raffle prizes were pretty sad, mostly, mercifully there were't a lot of them.
 
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