Reefstock improvments

murfman

murfman

New member
I'd like to get input from you guys/gals as customers as to how we can make events like Reefstock/Fragstock better.

SCMAS will be hosting Fragstock on the 21st of August 2010 and want to make this a great event, as well.

You input would be greatly appreciated on how to improve on this, however, it is not a flaming thread. We did not host Reefstock, we were just the labor for it.


Murf
SCMAS PR.
 
I'd like to see a little more room to walk around. It seems that some people would stand in front of the vendors to visit with each other which meant others couldn't view what the vendor was selling.
I still thought it was a nice event though.
 
I have to second the room. The problem I felt was while it was a nice setup, when I was there at 11-12ish it was just way to packed in the back section. in order to save space I guess the tables were way to close to the center. One other thing I was bummed about was that there was not to many dry goods for sale like the vortechs or the such.

The dry goods are minor, but we left after 30 mins or so because it was just to crazy and my wife does not work well when being bumped 24/7 haha
 
Keep Mike (Pothuntr) from winning all the raffles! LOL!

I would say the event was overall excellent. The speaker's classroom was way to small.
 
I was there for a couple of hours when it first opened(first in line, woot!). I guess I was kind of expecting a bigger room. The vendors were right on top of each other which made things very difficult. Especially when someone wants to show their 2-3 friends the coral they are looking at and they are all standing in front of the one table. Perhaps maybe a way to block off a vendor walk way from the general walk way. That way people that want to look at the vendors goods would have their own path. Using a rope for example that gave room for a line of people in front of the tables and then just room to walk behind them. That way people that congregate would have to do so elsewhere. I also wouldn't mind actually mixing the coral vendors in with the people demo'ing the products just so that everyone isn't right on top of each other. The left side of the room was mobbed, the right side and the end not so much. I also kinda felt like the vendors had more room behind their tables then we did in front of them, lol. So maybe push them back further? To be honest, I'm sure you guys could probably get a bigger room for less money at a different location then the aquarium. I see the "connection", but I just didn't feel like doing it there was that necessary.
 
I agree with the room thing. I was there from 10:30 till 3:30 (trips to the aquarium and lunch in that time) and never felt like I got to look at the corals. Now, i'm a noob and my set up isn't even ready but i would have liked to have learned and been able to see something. Anytime I stopped to try to get a peak I felt like I was blocking traffic so I kept on going...

Didn't help that I had my kids with me but...

Did not get the feeling that this event was very "new guy" friendly, maybe thats the goal. Will probably not go next time.

Will say this, the people at the front door taking the money and selling the tickets were the nicest people there, very friendly to me and my kids.

Thats a noobs .02
 
I agree that the Colorado reefing community is outgrowing the ballroom at the aquarium. I am sure that will be taken into account for future shows. It is a great venue for these events though.

LSBoogie, I felt very much the same way a few years ago when I was introduced to the clubs and the events. Don't let the first few events sour you. This is a very small community and it does feel awkward at first. Kind of like being at someone's family reunion. No one wants you to feel out of place, it is just unavoidable when everyone knows each other. And don't feel rushed, they have seven hours to look at corals, they can go around if they don't want to wait for you.
 
LSBoogie don't feel to awkward. Being that this was only the third envent that I have attended I know the feeling but as you continue to chat and atend events the feeling goes away. I felt the same way but now know that it is not the intent of anyone there. Everyone that I have talked to are friendly and more than willing to chat and lend a hand etc. Hope to see ya around at the next one.

IMO just give it time.

Adam
 
I just thought of something that would help a new guy not feel like such a new guy.

If possible: I noticed lots of seperate display tanks and while it seemed they were sorted somewhat by species, would it be hard to have some sort of difficulty or hardiness visual identifier so a noob wouldn't have to admit he was a noob...:fun4:

Basically: Say you have a grouping of zoas (assuming they are "easier" corals here so bear with me) either a whole tank or a section of a tank, you could put like a green square or sticker just under them.

next level difficulty would have orange, then red. This way people scanning could see what difficulty level the corals they were admiring were without having to ask.

Would be great to have all the vendors do that with the little round sticker packets and have the people taking the money hand them a little card that said what the colors meant. wouldn't have to label each individual coral but either the species tank or species section of the tank.

Does that make sense?

That way if while I'm running by a tank I see something really really cool and it has a green sticker under it I might actually hold up traffic and check it out closer, if its red, I'll let the pro behind me have it.

Might seem really basic to you guys but keep in mind that some of us, me to be honest, couldn't tell a purple widgeamatic goblin smasher from a tulip tosin toad defragmentation....
 
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These are all real good comments lets keep them coming. FRAGSTOCK will be 21 Aug at the aquarium, sorry but the venue has been paid for. We don't have a count or who will be attending just yet but will try and make things better.

As for identifying the corals or difficulty in keep them depends on the actual vendors. I know a lot of them started using different acrylic rods to separate sections in their tanks. I don't know if all of the vendors will read this or not but they are going to run their tanks the way they want.

Please, keep the good comments coming!!
 
I understand the be present for the raffles, but would more money be generated if you didn't need to be present? I would have bought a ton more tickets. It's a double edge sword I know.
 
For the newbies, I bet if you ask anyone standing in the immediate area which corals you could handle, they'd probably be more than willing to help you out. I know it's kinda tough to know what each coral is and how hard it is to keep but I like to help out anyone who needs it and I'm sure most people here feel the same way. I'd rather help a newbie than let him/her make a mistake in buying something inappropriate for their tanks. That being said, Reefstock is mainly a hard coral paradise because that's where the money is. Some will have softies, but not big selection. I actually picked up a softie as my one and only purchase hehe. It was a nice big frag of red people eater zoanthids (palys?). It seems that Acans are always a big hit. You may be a newbie now but you'll probably be a veteran in no time. I felt like you did at my first ReefStock. My tank was full of softies and no one really had a good selection that I was able to get to ;) I still haven't worked my way up to Acropora (and don't really want to) but I do have different kinds of Montipora, Chalices, and Acans in my tank now. I think the reefers in this area probably have anything that you would want in your tank. Most of them live up north but it's worth the drive.
 
As above crowed, which is good, but just couldn't get close to many of the vendors booths to see what they had to sell. I ended up with some from a seller that I had arranged before the event.
But another great event!!!
 
Zooid said:
For the newbies, I bet if you ask anyone standing in the immediate area which corals you could handle, they'd probably be more than willing to help you out. I know it's kinda tough to know what each coral is and how hard it is to keep but I like to help out anyone who needs it and I'm sure most people here feel the same way. I'd rather help a newbie than let him/her make a mistake in buying something inappropriate for their tanks. That being said, Reefstock is mainly a hard coral paradise because that's where the money is. Some will have softies, but not big selection. I actually picked up a softie as my one and only purchase hehe. It was a nice big frag of red people eater zoanthids (palys?). It seems that Acans are always a big hit. You may be a newbie now but you'll probably be a veteran in no time. I felt like you did at my first ReefStock. My tank was full of softies and no one really had a good selection that I was able to get to ;) I still haven't worked my way up to Acropora (and don't really want to) but I do have different kinds of Montipora, Chalices, and Acans in my tank now. I think the reefers in this area probably have anything that you would want in your tank. Most of them live up north but it's worth the drive.
Click to expand...

Lucky for me..I live up north...:dance:...Now only if my tank would cycle faster so I could add some unga bungas...really love those...Maybe some hubba wubbas too...can't forget my favortie thing to look at in water...ta tas...soo beautiful when done right....:jester:

I'll "probably" go to the one in August as I hope to not be as...ahhh...unedjumakated
 
LSBoogie check out these two websites they really helped me out and also help me to understand the types of corals (still not so good with the names, lol)

http://www.asira.org/caresheets

http://zoaid.com/

This site has a wealth of info that I still read alomst daily....some day I may know enough to feel like I know what I am doing.

http://www.wetwebmedia.com/marine/index.htm

Hope this helps and feel free to PM any questions you may have and I would be happy to give it my best shot to help as we are all still learning.

Adam
 
Back on topic I thought the event was very good, yes a litle hard to move around, but I thought the layout was about as good as it coud be for the amount of vendors and space.

It may work better to try to separate the coral vendors by the others (something like every other then the "coral row" may not be so crowded.

Great event all the same. See you all at the next one!
 
The room did feel quite small with all the coral vendors lined up together. But given the other happenings (raffles, aquascaping, vendor displays) it was almost manageable. I think the space used by Midwest Tropicals could have been better used by live goods vendors.

I think the idea of spacing the coral vendors out a bit is a good one. When there is room for folks to stand around three sides of a vendors' display, it allows more folks to ponder the whatchamacallits (just for you LSBoogie) while another is conducting a transaction.

Another possibility might be to setup the vendor displays like the club tanks, in a 'U' shape. That would accommodate more folks around a set of vendors and leave room for everyone.

There was an amazing amount of stuff at the raffle, and several items were initially missed or not identified well. I liked the idea of timed raffles. I found the combined raffles a bit confusing as both the individual and combined items were all listed together. Maybe one general bucket for the catch all items that you pull tickets from throughout the day and separate buckets for each high end item would have been cleaner. It also increases your chances as all drawings for the general category come from a single tub. Loved the raffle mistress.... clear and easy to hear... microphone or no.

I'll be following this thread as well as I look to setup the DARC event here in a couple of weeks.

-Rob
 
THe U shaped frag tank did not quite work as well as it usually does. Cherry Corals had the Cherry spot but Whomever was right behind Key had a hard time getting traffic.

A bit more signage would have been cool. I like to know who donated the raffle items. Plus you probably continue to get more items from the donators if you give them a plug or two. I know I would rather support business that supports the local community.

Really liked that marco rock was available for purchase. Didn't know they were going to be there or I could have planned ahead. Maybe a centralized site with a vendor list and short Bio of what they will be selling/promoting. I know this is a lot to ask but for this size of event I think it warrants it.

There were also a lot of really great Lights to look at but thats really all you could do. Hard to learn much about a fixture/concept sitting in front of your face without an explanation or sign or something. (Those plasma lights looked slick)

Still thought it was great but that's my .02
 
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