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MACNA Today

jimroth

jimroth

Very nice show floor, good facility. Not as big as ours and the raffle is poorer.

Saw a Julian Sprung presentation on plants in the aquarium, mostly true plants like seagrasses, he kind of droned on and put me to sleep. Marc Levinson did a good presentation about sumps and general plumbing tips. A separate pump for the manifold, that is a great idea, then I don't have to upgrade my return pump. He uses two Darts, I don't think I need quite that much. He thinks that refugiums will go away because of biopellets but he still does both.

Good but silly presentation about wrasses from Tony Vargas, mostly a list of species and how much they cost.
 
Tazmaniancowboy

Tazmaniancowboy

Officer Emeritus
Officer Emeritus
Thanks for the update. Some of us are unfortunate and have to live through descriptions like this on the boards and facebook!

Have a great time!
 
jimroth

jimroth

Saw Darren (dnov) from the club, Hi Darren! Saturday included some really good presentations. In the morning there was a good thing about acro eating flatworms and where they come from. Marc and Scott Fellman did a funny workshop on aquascaping. Sanjay's annual lighting extravaganza was very popular, almost a full room, like 1000 people. Marc Levinson Kept the afternoon interesting with $1 margaritas on the show floor! Hic! The banquet was about as good as those things get food wise. Jean Michel Cousteau was an engaging speaker but it seemed to me to go on forever, maybe I was just tired. Marineland gave everyone in the audience (1400) a powerhead, pretty nice.
 
dnov99

dnov99

FRAG SWAP VENDOR
Well I had a blast at the show, although I thought they missed the ball on several fronts. If you wanted to buy coral there was a ton of it. I came home with about 15 new pieces, if I was a vendor there I would not have been happy as there was too much competition on that front. Additionally they couldnt fit all the vendors into one room, so many had to be put in a second, back room which I thought was very unfair as the traffic to this area was significantly less.

The banquet and reception were terrible in terms of service, we left the reception after 30 minutes and didnt even bother with the banquet. They had 3 bartenders for 1000 people and the wait to get a drink was 30 minutes. We were also told it was open bar for 2 hours, but then upon arrival were given 2 drink tickets and then it was cash bar. The food was limited to a few hand passed hor dourves which you had to fight for and were cold and the type you buy from Costco. I will stop there. LOL

I heard the raffle yesterday was a complete disaster and took all day. If you won a fish or coral you basically had to wait all day to get them. My friend won a pair of platinum clowns and wasnt able to get them until 7pm and then he had to drive 14 hours back to Illinois.

Luckily we stayed at a different hotel as I had a feeling the Sheraton was going to be a dated, low quality hotel which is was. On that note I already purchased tickets to next years event as it is right on the beach at the amazing Westin hotel.
 
jimroth

jimroth

dnov99 said:
Well I had a blast at the show, although I thought they missed the ball on several fronts. If you wanted to buy coral there was a ton of it. I came home with about 15 new pieces, if I was a vendor there I would not have been happy as there was too much competition on that front. Additionally they couldnt fit all the vendors into one room, so many had to be put in a second, back room which I thought was very unfair as the traffic to this area was significantly less.

The banquet and reception were terrible in terms of service, we left the reception after 30 minutes and didnt even bother with the banquet. They had 3 bartenders for 1000 people and the wait to get a drink was 30 minutes. We were also told it was open bar for 2 hours, but then upon arrival were given 2 drink tickets and then it was cash bar. The food was limited to a few hand passed hor dourves which you had to fight for and were cold and the type you buy from Costco. I will stop there. LOL

I heard the raffle yesterday was a complete disaster and took all day. If you won a fish or coral you basically had to wait all day to get them. My friend won a pair of platinum clowns and wasnt able to get them until 7pm and then he had to drive 14 hours back to Illinois.

Luckily we stayed at a different hotel as I had a feeling the Sheraton was going to be a dated, low quality hotel which is was. On that note I already purchased tickets to next years event as it is right on the beach at the amazing Westin hotel.
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My standards must be somewhat lower than yours. I thought the reception was fun, with the casino games, though I agree about the so-called "buffet," I had to get food afterwards, people were tackling those servers and the food was not great. I mugged some weak-looking guys for their drink tickets, they weren't gonna use them anyway. :D

The banquet was 1400 people, I think the food is always suspect at those things, it's hard to do. Cousteau was a compelling speaker. He just went on a little long, and I think there was tension when he showed some of Snorkel Bob's photos of dead yellow tangs. I would have liked a couple drink tickets there, too.

I was not going to buy anything for my nasty tank, so I can't speak to the livestock issues. There were a lot of sellers. Maybe it's a Texas thing, I spoke to some people who drove from smaller towns where they never get a chance to buy stuff of this quality in person. Pacific East Aquaculture was not doing retail sales, Mac had a display of his excellent Tridacnas for wholesalers and that was it. He told me he's looking forward to the club's frag swap.

I had no complaints about the Sheraton, my room was clean and comfortable, people were helpful. Lighting could have been better. I usually stay at the ZaZa on the other side of the highway, which is closer to my work and way more stylish (and kind of ...uh..arty...) but rooms are 50-60 a night more expensive, and they don't have a convention center. And when it rained, which it did, we could walk directly into MACNA without going outside. They could have done the Marriott which is connected to the convention space too.

The auction was slightly a mess. (I don't know if you remember OUR MACNA raffle --not much fun). It went from 2-5, and the pace was bad. They didn't have it figured out quite as well we did, they gave away a lot less stuff and did it less efficiently. Honestly it was unpleasant to sit there waiting to see if you won (I had 250 tickets and won NOTHING.) My biggest complaint about the raffle was the gal working the stage who won one of the iPhones, she shouldn't have been doing the raffle and trying to win stuff, it created a bad impression. She gloated loudly when she won and got a big round of BOOOS! I'm never participating in another MACNA raffle, it's like watching paint dry.
 
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M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
I think all frag swaps are a logistical nightmare and the bigger equals more problems. I do agree with you though if you are working the show, hand your tickets to someone else. Nothing is going to create more issues than having anything looked rigged in the slightest sense. During our event I think I was holding 3 people's tickets and sat off to the side without any NJRC apparel on.

The Westin in Miami looks phenomonal, that might just have to be a go.
 
dnov99

dnov99

FRAG SWAP VENDOR
The girl who won the I-phone won BOTH of them under 2 separate drawings. Also a 15 year old kid won A custom rimless tank, 2 AI Vega's and an MP40. So basically there were a lot of people screaming conspiracy theories.

As for the food issue, at Orlando and Iowa, they had carving stations, hand passed food, and other buffet stations set up. So you kind of expect similar service, but it is what it is.
 
Classklown90

Classklown90

Sorry to jump in here but I was just curious if our club has any intentions of putting a bid on to host 2014?

Sent from my SGH-T769
 
M

mnat

Officer Emeritus
Staff member
Moderator
It is really tough to do one in the state of New Jersey for one big reason, the convention centers are run by the unions. This is NOT a bash on unions at all so please don't take it that way I am just stating the fact here. The cost of dealing with the unions for an event like this is almost prohibitive. Why? Since there is water involved, plumbers have to be on hand, since their is electricity, electricians have to be on hand. So if I wanted to setup a tank, I needed a plumber to pour the water in and an electrician to plug it in and I am being completely serious. When we threw it last time our cost for the union OVERTIME, not regular cost, ran into the 5 figures.

Also to be very honest these things are a massive massive undertaking that are not to be taken lightly. This really does take a solid dedicated group of people working year round and pretty much around the clock. You give up countless hours of your own time and have many many late nights. Figure you are going to have to take time off of work and miss many weekends. I am not saying we are not capable of doing it, I am just saying you really need a dedicated team.
 
Hawkeye

Hawkeye

Classklown90 said:
Sorry to jump in here but I was just curious if our club has any intentions of putting a bid on to host 2014?

Sent from my SGH-T769
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MACNAs past. While I feel like the club learned a lot from Atlanta and made a lot of changes to accommodate what people wanted, I sorta doubt MASNA would choose NJ again so soon. Also a lot of the core knowledge from people like john/phyl/mikem/rod/brian etc which would be beneficial to have is not here anymore since they are not as active or flat out not with the club anymore.


I – Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto April 22-23, 1989
II – Cleveland Saltwater Enthusiasts Association April 21-22, 1999
III – Windows to the Sea Marine Aquarium Society (New Jersey) April 20-21, 1991
IV – Florida Marine Aquarium Society September 20-21, 1992
V – Marine Aquarium Society of Toronto September 12-13, 1993
VI – Cleveland Saltwater Enthusiasts Association October 14-16, 1994
VII – Louisville Marine Aquarium Society September 14-16, 1995
VIII – Kansas City Metro Aquatics Council October 11-13, 1996
IX – Chicago Marine Aquarium Society September 12-14, 1997
X – Marine Aquarium Society of Los Angeles September 25-27, 1998
XI – Louisville Marine Aquarium Society September 10-12, 1999
XII – Florida Marine Aquarium Society (Fort Lauderdale) September 29 – October 1, 2000
XIII – Chesapeake Marine Aquarium Society (Baltimore) August 17-19, 2001
XIV – Dallas-Fort Worth Marine Aquarium Society September 27-29, 2002
XV – Louisville Marine Aquarium Society September 5-7, 2003
XVI – Boston Reefers Society October 14-16, 2004
XVII – Washington D.C. Area Marine Aquarium Society September 16-18, 2005
XVIII – Marine Aquarium and Reef Society of Houston September 22-24, 2006
XIX – Pittsburgh Marine Aquarium Society September 14-16, 2007
XX – Atlanta Reef Club September 5-7, 2008
XXI – New Jersey Reefers Club (Atlantic City) September 25-27, 2009
XXII – Orlando Reef Caretakers Association September 3-5, 2010
XXIII – Greater Iowa Reef Society (Des Moines) September 9-11, 2011
XXIV - Dallas Fort Worth - September 28-30, 2012


Next up XXV: - Florida Marine Aquarium Society (Fort Lauderdale
 
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