Reef nutrition

FREE Booth offered to Bay Area Reefers at Marine Aquarium Expo, April 5-6, 2008!

flyer.jpg

Hi,
My name is Kevin Adams and I was the organizer/promoter of Reef-A-Palooza 2007 that some of your members may have visited last August in Southern California. I am now organizing a two-day consumer-trade show next April: "Marine Aquarium Expo" (MAX) April 5-6 2008 at the Orange County Fair & Exposition Center in Costa Mesa, CA (Building 12 and adjoining courtyard; over 30,000 sq. ft. of space) MAX is one of the largest shows of its kind in the entire United States! http://www.marineaquariumexpo.com/
MAX is not affiliated with any club or organization; it is professionally managed by Sunset Promotional Services, Inc. but will benefit a number of area clubs as indicated below.

Over 100 exhibitor booths, eight speakers,http://marineaquariumexpo.com/speakers.html multiple workshops and 3,000 people are expected to attend this incredible event! MAX is sponsored by Reef Hobbyist Magazine and being promoted via various reef forums and publications. The floor plan sold to 90% capacity to within the first month of announcing its inception; over 70 businesses in the marine aquarium industry are currently signed up, and many more are expected to join over the next few months. MAX is probably the largest event in our entire industry in terms of sheer numbers. We are not the conference type of event such as MACNA or IMAC, but with entry fee of merely $10 adults, $5 seniors, and Free for kids 12 & under, this event is much more "family friendly" and affordable for the average reefer to attend. In addtion, we have negotiated special discounted rates from eight major hotels in the area to provide accomodations for MAX attendees:
http://marineaquariumexpo.com/travel.html
JohnWayne Airport (SNA) is only 5 minutes away and easily navigated:
http://marineaquariumexpo.com/map.html

We have since opened up a new section of booths in the courtyard section of the event with a number of 10'x10' booths that are currently available for rent @ $600 each. (the courtyard is a 7,000 sq. ft. covered patio area where the speakers, raffle, and most other activities are taking place) Courtyard booths are identical to the indoor booths with all electricity, pipe-and-drape, tables/chairs, and saltwater provided. Furthermore, the compound is completely enclosed and attached to building 12 as shown in the diagram on our website: http://www.marineaquariumexpo.com/floorplan.html

We have elected to donate, free of charge, at least a half dozen of these 10'x10' booths to various west coast clubs for the sake of helping the clubs promote their organizations, raise funds, and recruit new members. Sales of livegoods and other marine-related products are perfectly acceptable (encouraged actually) as long as the proceeds benefit the club. There are no stipulations or requirements associated with this offer whatsoever other than good will and sincere desire to help local organizations such as yours advance the hobby. We all have similar goals to educate and expand our hobby here in the Western United States and Marine Aquarium Expo is going to do just that. That being said, all we ask in return is that Bay Area Reefers provide some sort of display, workshop, slideshow, or some other topic of interest in their booth to contribute to the show in some way to help support the overall theme of MAX. We will provide some promotional materials prior to the show free of charge

Please pass this offer to your club officers for their review and consideration. Unfortunately we can only guarantee a certain number of booths due to space considerations so priority is given in the order of commitments received. Thus far we have acceptances from MASLAC, MASVC, SDMAS, NCRMAS, SCMAS, and LVVR. This means only one or two more booths are available, hence the need/urgency for a timely consideration.

If your club wishes to participate in Marine Aquarium Expo 2008, please contact us at one of the numbers listed below or via e-mail. Please feel free to contact me personally. I am available 10am to 10pm 7 days a week to help with any questions and/or concerns you may have. I am here to help. We look forward to hearing from you soon!

Sincerely,

Kevin T. Adams, MBA, President, CEO
Sunset Promotional Services, Inc.
"Marine Aquarium Expo 2008"
8072 Central Avenue
Garden Grove, CA 92844
(714) 530-1094 office
(714) 260-6660 cell
www.MarineAquariumExpo.com
email: quidproquo820@aol.com
 
There has been discussion about trying to spread the principle of DBTC to other reefers and mainly clubs. Do you guys feel this booth might be an appropriate forum to spread the word?
 
I brought up the MAX offer at the last BOD meeting.

As far as being a appropriate place to spread the news about the DBTC, I wouldn't think so. IMO we need to start with baby steps before taking on several thousand attendies ;)
 
"Doing Better Than Cat-owners"?
"Dirty Boy Trailer Club"?
"Devil's Bay Tabernacle Choir"?

Oooh, Oooh... I got it....
"Dead Bunnies That Couldn't run fast enough"? (Doh!....too many letters.....stupid letters!)

OK, I give up
WHAT is DBTC? ???



Inquiring Promotors want to know :p
 
What is DBTC
DBTC, stands for Don't Break The Chain, the idea is that it works like a Pay It Foward (PIF) type program, where someone donates a particular coral fragment with the idea that the person(s) who get said fragment will grow it out giving to others, who will in turn make fragment to others, etc.
 
My gosh what an awesome (and noble) idea!
gentlemen (and ladies) this would be a perfect theme to share with the 6 other clubs that are participating in MAX. Think about the possibilities.
I think it would suffice to say that your idea would best be served by collaborating and coaching sister clubs to pick up the ball and start their own version of DBTC. Therefore your target audience would be those clubs willing to embrace the challenge of promoting responsible reef keeping. This is exactly the type of thing we'd like to support!
 
As far as being a appropriate place to spread the news about the DBTC, I wouldn't think so. IMO we need to start with baby steps before taking on several thousand attendies

I'm thinking baby steps as well :D
 
Baby steps are good, but talking about what we do so other clubs do it probably should be high on the priority list so in the future (however short or long it might be) we do get inter-club trading they hopefully have their own program and understand how it works more so than "ooh hey those Bay Area guys are going to send us more free corals!"
 
One of the baby steps involves setting up an area on our forums where we can invite other clubs to join in on DBTC activities. Forum is good, because there'll be a bunch of discussion when other clubs join in. No rush right now. We need to get our DBTC tracking system running :D
 
I don't know.... I'm thinking getting other clubs to adopt the program may be a better long term investment.... I don't know I don't think I've been in the club/hobby long enough to argu.... that much :)
 
I agree with Kevin and think that DBTC may be the perfect conceptual program to present to other clubs. We only need to have a rudimentary tracking program to serve as an example. Thanks for the booth offer!-Jim
 
Guys, if you want to take it slow and cautious, why not do it in structured stages?
I've got a four-letter acronym of my own: EIIL
1) Educate
2) Initiate
3) Implement
4) Launch

You are developing a landmark idea (DBTC) in an incredibly beneficial period for this hobby. Never before have we had THREE major shows in California: MAX, RAP, and CFM. More importantly is the fact that all three are very likely to offer Bay Area Reefers a promotional booth. Do you see where I’m headed here?

May I offer my humble opinion?
If you wish to do this step-by-step (or baby steps as you put it) then here is one such path. The plan is beautiful in its simplicity yet very effective.

1) MAX, April 2008:
EDUCATE the public and fellow clubs about your idea. This can be something as simple as charts, graphs, flowcharts, etc.......nothing complicated; just something to get the idea out there, both visually and conceptually, and to start the ball rolling. The main objective at this stage is to get the other clubs to start talking about DBTC.

2) RAP, Oct 2008:
INITIATE feedback, ideas, and suggestions after the club’s have had a few months to talk about the idea with fellow members. They most likely will have tweaked and modified it into a strategy that best fits their club. At this stage you are trading conceptual ideas improvements to each other by presenting PowerPoint slides, photos, organizational charts, etc; something a little more advanced to get the creative juices flowing. At this stage, a real PLAN should start to take shape.

3) CFM, Feb 2009:
IMPLEMENT the idea into a small-scale beta program within a controlled test group (i.e. yourselves and the participating clubs) This stage would involve the actual trading/exchanging frags on a limited scale. This is really a “try-out” period to see who is truly committed to the idea of DBTC. The proof is in their hands, so to speak.

4) MAX, April 2009:
LAUNCH the idea into full-swing! You have now come full circle and are back at MAX where you will present the success of DBTC to the general public. All participating clubs will present (show-off actually) their contribution to the cause. This stage is really competitive but in a good way. Each club will want to show off their pride and sense of accomplishment. Hopefully DBTC will now be self-sustaining and growing into a network of participating organizations. The possibilities are endless.


So anyway, that’s my silly version of how this could work. Take it for what its worth. ;)
 
So you're volunteering to help me put the PP together?
What a guy!
ps. did you get all the valuable coral out of Rich's tank yet?
Did you save me some frags?
 
This sounds interesting - I may fly down on my own for the event. Maybe meet some new possible sponsors : ) I wouldn't want to man a booth unless we have more help.
 
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