Swap Input...
- Thread starter DMBillies
- Start date
gflat65
New member
We didn't have any coral vendors this year (had Just Coral last year and Coral Dynamics was going to come this year, but I guess soemthign came up). We didn't do the fragging demonstration last year and did this year, though. I would like to have had some coral vendors, but didn't hear back from anyone...
rsteagall
New member
I typed up some stuff, but must not have hit "Submit Reply".
Anyway I was also going to ask if something was missing... now I know. I think people missed seeing Just Coral. Beyond that I do realize the community center was a good deal ($$$) but is there somewhere more centrally located that might attract more people and/or vendors? I wonder if Vandy has any facilities to do such an event? I know I've gone to a few computer gaming LAN parties at one of the Vandy gyms. Anyway, just a thought.
Lastly, I'd like to thank Gary for all his hard work, dedication to this club, and an understanding wife!
-Ryan
PS, gary... I didn't know you were moving? Where to?
Anyway I was also going to ask if something was missing... now I know. I think people missed seeing Just Coral. Beyond that I do realize the community center was a good deal ($$$) but is there somewhere more centrally located that might attract more people and/or vendors? I wonder if Vandy has any facilities to do such an event? I know I've gone to a few computer gaming LAN parties at one of the Vandy gyms. Anyway, just a thought.
Lastly, I'd like to thank Gary for all his hard work, dedication to this club, and an understanding wife!
-Ryan
PS, gary... I didn't know you were moving? Where to?
gflat65
New member
Yeah, the vendors were a pretty big hit last year because they had so much variety. I wish we could have gotten a few to come to this one. As they keep getting bigger and better, I would think they will start wanting to come. I think there was a frag swap in Ohio this past weekend, too. Didn't see much promotion, but heard someone talking about it on another site (showing a frag off, anyway).
Cost is a main limiting factor. I must have had some charm I didn't know I had last year to get it for the price I did. This year, it was almost 5X the price (everyone wanted over a grand to rent out a room-then you have to find a place that has easy entry access and nearby parking, etc.). I checked out some of Vandy's rental areas last year and there was one that looked like it had parking that was somewhat nearby in an attached garage (everything else looked like there was only a few parking spots here and there like at most colleges), but you gotta think of people setting up alot of stuff and having to carry it... I never checked on pricing at any of the Vandy spots, though.
We're headed to Montgomery. Jenn is already down there during the weeks (staying with her aunt and uncle) and coming home on weekends until I can sell the house and/or find a job.
Cost is a main limiting factor. I must have had some charm I didn't know I had last year to get it for the price I did. This year, it was almost 5X the price (everyone wanted over a grand to rent out a room-then you have to find a place that has easy entry access and nearby parking, etc.). I checked out some of Vandy's rental areas last year and there was one that looked like it had parking that was somewhat nearby in an attached garage (everything else looked like there was only a few parking spots here and there like at most colleges), but you gotta think of people setting up alot of stuff and having to carry it... I never checked on pricing at any of the Vandy spots, though.
We're headed to Montgomery. Jenn is already down there during the weeks (staying with her aunt and uncle) and coming home on weekends until I can sell the house and/or find a job.
DMBillies
Active member
Thanks for the input everybody... keep it coming. I've been just kind of hovering about here. Some of my thoughts...
It would be nice to have a few more fragging demos for the people who are interested. The problem is, that requires more corals and more time (for the fraggers). We had talked about getting some kind of multimedia presentation together that would show fragging constantly. I think it might be a good idea to have one for next year in addition to a live fragging where people can ask questions and see it done. We have LFS meets where we often frag something. Perhaps we should take a video at the next one and then have someone narrate it for a looped presentation at the next swap? That, or take detailed pics and then make a powerpoint presentation explaining the steps.
As far as the place was concerned I thought it worked out pretty nice. There were no parking issues, plenty of doors to move things into and out of, frag swap related people and attendees were the only people around (i.e., we didn't have to fight other crowds to get to the event and run it), and it was much bigger than last year alleviating a lot of the flow issues. Knowing what we know now about the room, we might be able to improve any problems we did have.
Ryan, I'm following you on finding a more central location, but I'm not sure that the short ride up 65 really turned many people away. Other than those living right in Nashville, most people had a bit of a trip and I'm sure it wasn't that much more out of the way. It was a little bit away from restaurants and any touristy downtown stuff... I'd be interested to hear what the out-of-towners thought about that? Having it in town sounds nice, but you need to offset the additional cost somehow and I'm not sure that that many more people would attend to make it "worth it" money wise. If we stepped up advertising in the local area (and other parts of the state), maybe.
I am a grad student at Vandy and can look around to see if there might be a decent option on campus, but I feel like it would almost certainly be out of our price range (unless we start charging a significant entry fee... something we wanted to avoid to make sure that we had plenty of newbies there who might not be willing to pay for a swap if they don't know what it is all about).
Entry time was a little point of contention since we needed to give people selling things time to set-up. We didn't really want a lot of pre-shopping. The problem is (and I'm guilty) it's almost impossible to resist going around and seeing what everyone brought after you're done setting up. Inevitably, if it doesn't result in some sales, it does result in people having other people hold stuff for them. I'm not sure there is a good way around this. Open to suggestions.
Sounds like, regardless of the entry time issue, we need to "corral" people a little more at the front door to get people to sign in. The sign in wouldn't be a big deal other than accounting for how many people are there, which help us convince vendors and companies that helping us out is a worthy cause.
The T-shirts were new for this year and a lot of that was up in the air. We didn't know how many we even realistically could sell and even at $18 we had to sell almost all of them to cover the production cost (which I'm not sure we even did). Unless you get a lot of shirts printed, the prices don't come down much and we knew we couldn't realistically sell all that many (~250 attendees aren't going to eat up that many shirts... unless we have a hardcore MTRC following). In the future we may be able to try to sell T-shirt space (on the back or something) to vendors or other frag swap supporters to help offset the cost of the shirts and drive that price down a bit. That'll take more time to put together than we had this year (t-shirts were a bit last minute).
Well, as I said, keep the thoughts coming...
It would be nice to have a few more fragging demos for the people who are interested. The problem is, that requires more corals and more time (for the fraggers). We had talked about getting some kind of multimedia presentation together that would show fragging constantly. I think it might be a good idea to have one for next year in addition to a live fragging where people can ask questions and see it done. We have LFS meets where we often frag something. Perhaps we should take a video at the next one and then have someone narrate it for a looped presentation at the next swap? That, or take detailed pics and then make a powerpoint presentation explaining the steps.
As far as the place was concerned I thought it worked out pretty nice. There were no parking issues, plenty of doors to move things into and out of, frag swap related people and attendees were the only people around (i.e., we didn't have to fight other crowds to get to the event and run it), and it was much bigger than last year alleviating a lot of the flow issues. Knowing what we know now about the room, we might be able to improve any problems we did have.
Ryan, I'm following you on finding a more central location, but I'm not sure that the short ride up 65 really turned many people away. Other than those living right in Nashville, most people had a bit of a trip and I'm sure it wasn't that much more out of the way. It was a little bit away from restaurants and any touristy downtown stuff... I'd be interested to hear what the out-of-towners thought about that? Having it in town sounds nice, but you need to offset the additional cost somehow and I'm not sure that that many more people would attend to make it "worth it" money wise. If we stepped up advertising in the local area (and other parts of the state), maybe.
I am a grad student at Vandy and can look around to see if there might be a decent option on campus, but I feel like it would almost certainly be out of our price range (unless we start charging a significant entry fee... something we wanted to avoid to make sure that we had plenty of newbies there who might not be willing to pay for a swap if they don't know what it is all about).
Entry time was a little point of contention since we needed to give people selling things time to set-up. We didn't really want a lot of pre-shopping. The problem is (and I'm guilty) it's almost impossible to resist going around and seeing what everyone brought after you're done setting up. Inevitably, if it doesn't result in some sales, it does result in people having other people hold stuff for them. I'm not sure there is a good way around this. Open to suggestions.
Sounds like, regardless of the entry time issue, we need to "corral" people a little more at the front door to get people to sign in. The sign in wouldn't be a big deal other than accounting for how many people are there, which help us convince vendors and companies that helping us out is a worthy cause.
The T-shirts were new for this year and a lot of that was up in the air. We didn't know how many we even realistically could sell and even at $18 we had to sell almost all of them to cover the production cost (which I'm not sure we even did). Unless you get a lot of shirts printed, the prices don't come down much and we knew we couldn't realistically sell all that many (~250 attendees aren't going to eat up that many shirts... unless we have a hardcore MTRC following). In the future we may be able to try to sell T-shirt space (on the back or something) to vendors or other frag swap supporters to help offset the cost of the shirts and drive that price down a bit. That'll take more time to put together than we had this year (t-shirts were a bit last minute).
Well, as I said, keep the thoughts coming...
I really liked where the swap was at this year. Didn't hit any traffic. Only took me 40 minutes coming from Smyrna. I didn't even know t-shirts was bein' sold. Like I said, I didn't even sign in...didn't catch the sign in table cause as soon as I walked through the doors, I went straight to the raffle ticket table. I have no complaints though. I enjoyed it.
Steve
Steve
buzzbait00
New member
Was anybody taking pix?I only got 3.I was busy lookin over frags
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1025870
http://www.reefcentral.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=1025870
