Reef Bass
colors and textures
BAYMAC was a success all round. Vendors and clubs made some sales and got exposure. The public got some nice corals at ridiculous prices. It was well organized and executed smoothly (nicely done Gresham!). There was a massive raffle at the end with many sweet prizes and a 29g biocube grand prize.
The venue was essentially next to The Aquarium Showroom, one of the largest LFS I've seen. If Max is as helpful with customers as he was with clubs at the show, the customer service there must be outstanding. Check 'em out.
I'd like to thank Steve Ruddy and Shane for stopping by during the show and providing me some booth relief. And Steve donated some nice frags and a couple of good looking anemones which ended up being our biggest sales at $30 and $20, which were give away prices for such nice specimens. And to those who donated frags or loaned hardware, thank you as well.
In round numbers there were like 20 vendors and 6 clubs present. There was fairly good floor traffic and next year promises to be even bigger.
From what I understand, this was our club's first presence at a show and allowing for that we did alright. Here's a shot of our "booth".
Our booth was the most ghetto looking booth at the show and that probably impacted sales. I've done sales at booths at shows in other industries and our attention grabbing factor was close to zero.
In general, people seemed to be buying inexpensive frags. I had hoped to sell $10 soft items, $30 montis and $50 acros like ORA Roscoes Blue Tip and Karls Candlelight. The public wasn't having it. Even at $20 most of the montis (sunset, reverse sunset, baby blue polyp green) didn't sell. Same with $30 ORA Roscoe and Candlelight! Most of the $10 items did sell as did items which priced down to $10 at the end of the show. I honestly hoped and thought we'd sell everything and I ended bring back some of our nicer stuff. They'll make great items in our next raffle.
As a result, we did not make any where near the money I had hoped. With only a few $10 soft items, lack of demand for even $30 hard items, and after making a small donation to BAYMAC in appreciation of our free presence (I gave only half the suggested amount because of our low gross receipts) and reimbursing me for gas, we cleared about $125.
How could we have done better? Several things come to mind.
Our booth itself was very amateurish compared to others. A large color banner declaring the club's name would have been much better than the 8x11 printouts I did of the only copy of the logo I have despite having asked for a more recent version (will someone PLEASE send me the most recent version?!)
Our wet displays were marginal to poor from water volume, filtration and display capability standpoints. The fixture on top of the 10g was easy to knock into the tank. The nanocube's circulation pump didn't work at all and holding its heavy lid open with one hand while trying to retrieve a frag and put it in a container with the other was cumbersome.
Our lighting sucked. If people didn't see popping color, they weren't buying. "It looks great under MHs, really!" didn't carry much weight, particularly when all the other vendors and clubs had good lighting.
Nobody wanted "mystery frags" of hard corals. If a frag didn't have a specific name, people weren't interested. We need to make sure that every piece is identified by name.
We should print up some business cards for shows. A number of people from vendors to customers asked me for a card and I had nothing to give them. All missed opportunities.
I recommend the club be present at next year's BAYMAC and that we be ready with more low cost items that are better labelled and more professionally displayed.
On a personal level, yesterday was a very long day. From the time I started breaking down my QT tank and packing it and donated frags up for the show to the time I unpacked unsold frags back into my setup QT tank that evening (having setup everything at the show and broken it all down at the end too) was 17 hours. I recommend that a minimum of two people volunteer to represent the club at future shows and events.
To paraphrase Bob, "If everyone does a little, then no one has to do a lot".
The venue was essentially next to The Aquarium Showroom, one of the largest LFS I've seen. If Max is as helpful with customers as he was with clubs at the show, the customer service there must be outstanding. Check 'em out.
I'd like to thank Steve Ruddy and Shane for stopping by during the show and providing me some booth relief. And Steve donated some nice frags and a couple of good looking anemones which ended up being our biggest sales at $30 and $20, which were give away prices for such nice specimens. And to those who donated frags or loaned hardware, thank you as well.
In round numbers there were like 20 vendors and 6 clubs present. There was fairly good floor traffic and next year promises to be even bigger.
From what I understand, this was our club's first presence at a show and allowing for that we did alright. Here's a shot of our "booth".
Our booth was the most ghetto looking booth at the show and that probably impacted sales. I've done sales at booths at shows in other industries and our attention grabbing factor was close to zero.
In general, people seemed to be buying inexpensive frags. I had hoped to sell $10 soft items, $30 montis and $50 acros like ORA Roscoes Blue Tip and Karls Candlelight. The public wasn't having it. Even at $20 most of the montis (sunset, reverse sunset, baby blue polyp green) didn't sell. Same with $30 ORA Roscoe and Candlelight! Most of the $10 items did sell as did items which priced down to $10 at the end of the show. I honestly hoped and thought we'd sell everything and I ended bring back some of our nicer stuff. They'll make great items in our next raffle.
As a result, we did not make any where near the money I had hoped. With only a few $10 soft items, lack of demand for even $30 hard items, and after making a small donation to BAYMAC in appreciation of our free presence (I gave only half the suggested amount because of our low gross receipts) and reimbursing me for gas, we cleared about $125.
How could we have done better? Several things come to mind.
Our booth itself was very amateurish compared to others. A large color banner declaring the club's name would have been much better than the 8x11 printouts I did of the only copy of the logo I have despite having asked for a more recent version (will someone PLEASE send me the most recent version?!)
Our wet displays were marginal to poor from water volume, filtration and display capability standpoints. The fixture on top of the 10g was easy to knock into the tank. The nanocube's circulation pump didn't work at all and holding its heavy lid open with one hand while trying to retrieve a frag and put it in a container with the other was cumbersome.
Our lighting sucked. If people didn't see popping color, they weren't buying. "It looks great under MHs, really!" didn't carry much weight, particularly when all the other vendors and clubs had good lighting.
Nobody wanted "mystery frags" of hard corals. If a frag didn't have a specific name, people weren't interested. We need to make sure that every piece is identified by name.
We should print up some business cards for shows. A number of people from vendors to customers asked me for a card and I had nothing to give them. All missed opportunities.
I recommend the club be present at next year's BAYMAC and that we be ready with more low cost items that are better labelled and more professionally displayed.
On a personal level, yesterday was a very long day. From the time I started breaking down my QT tank and packing it and donated frags up for the show to the time I unpacked unsold frags back into my setup QT tank that evening (having setup everything at the show and broken it all down at the end too) was 17 hours. I recommend that a minimum of two people volunteer to represent the club at future shows and events.
To paraphrase Bob, "If everyone does a little, then no one has to do a lot".
