AquaMania 2 and staff

gravel_digger

gravel_digger

Members
Big SHOUT OUT to the entire CCA staff for ALL their work in putting this past weekend together. It was AWESOME all around. I can't wait to see what's planned for next year.

Great job again gals and guys


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dogofwar

dogofwar

CCA Members
Even if you're just looking to get fish and supplies, it makes sense to attend the whole event:

The Group Buys with The Wet Spot, Dave's Rare Fish, Kensfish and Bob's Rare Plants were only open to registered attendees. The free/reduced shipping and or the promotional discount on a decent order could pay for registration alone!

The vendors who sell on Friday and Saturday tend to sell some of their best stuff before the Marketplace. We were lucky to have Frank's Aquarium down from New York on Friday and Saturday (lots of cool and rare cats, tetras and other oddballs)...He was supposed to be in the Marketplace on Sunday but chose to head home on Sun AM to miss the bad weather.

There were some amazing deals on truly awesome fish in the Saturday Night Rare Fish Auction.... fish that I've never seen before... for ridiculously low prices.

There were a couple of dozen raffle prizes...a lot of them $25, $35, $50, $75, $100 gift cards for vendors in the Marketplace (and with whom we did group buys and/or were sponsors).

And that's not even getting into the value of four awesome speakers, free beer and food on Friday and Saturday, free T-shirt, free goodies/samples, getting to hang out with fellow hobbyists, supporting the club, etc.

Matt

SportyG1rl said:
Agreed, we were only there on Sunday...next year I think it will be a weekend trip!
Click to expand...
 
Becca

Becca

Members
dogofwar said:
Even if you're just looking to get fish and supplies, it makes sense to attend the whole event:

The Group Buys with The Wet Spot, Dave's Rare Fish, Kensfish and Bob's Rare Plants were only open to registered attendees. The free/reduced shipping and or the promotional discount on a decent order could pay for registration alone!

The vendors who sell on Friday and Saturday tend to sell some of their best stuff before the Marketplace. We were lucky to have Frank's Aquarium down from New York on Friday and Saturday (lots of cool and rare cats, tetras and other oddballs)...He was supposed to be in the Marketplace on Sunday but chose to head home on Sun AM to miss the bad weather.

There were some amazing deals on truly awesome fish in the Saturday Night Rare Fish Auction.... fish that I've never seen before... for ridiculously low prices.

There were a couple of dozen raffle prizes...a lot of them $25, $35, $50, $75, $100 gift cards for vendors in the Marketplace (and with whom we did group buys and/or were sponsors).

And that's not even getting into the value of four awesome speakers, free beer and food on Friday and Saturday, free T-shirt, free goodies/samples, getting to hang out with fellow hobbyists, supporting the club, etc.

Matt
Click to expand...

Agreed. I got some awesome samples from the Cobalt guy, and had time to talk with him since he wasn't mobbed in a busy marketplace. I also got a chance to meet Anton in person, and chat with Frank (franksqauarium) about his experience keeping some of my favorite oddball fish. I even won a raffle I didn't know I'd entered which, unbeknownst to me, paid off when Zack gave me a Betta.;)
 
dogofwar

dogofwar

CCA Members
One of the things that we struggle with is that while folks who have been to fish events know that the $35 registration for AquaMania was a great value (and about as cheap as we can make it), people who aren't already in fish club circles seem much less likely to register and participate.

Of course the same folks drop $50 or more for dinner and a movie (or just dinner...or a movie) without blinking an eye.

Thoughts on how to get more folks to register for the full event?

Matt
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
I thought about the same thing. In reality I got double that in free stuff, I saved double that on fish purchased there rather than in a retail setting. I saved that much on shipping from the pre orders, and that much again on discounted dry goods from the market place. Thats only the monetary value. I also heard and met great speakers, met a ton of fellow hobbyists learned a ton saw stuff I've never seen........ there is no end to the benifits.

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Tony

Tony

Alligator Snapping Turtle/Past Pres
dogofwar said:
Even if you're just looking to get fish and supplies, it makes sense to attend the whole event:

The Group Buys with The Wet Spot, Dave's Rare Fish, Kensfish and Bob's Rare Plants were only open to registered attendees. The free/reduced shipping and or the promotional discount on a decent order could pay for registration alone!

The vendors who sell on Friday and Saturday tend to sell some of their best stuff before the Marketplace. We were lucky to have Frank's Aquarium down from New York on Friday and Saturday (lots of cool and rare cats, tetras and other oddballs)...He was supposed to be in the Marketplace on Sunday but chose to head home on Sun AM to miss the bad weather.

There were some amazing deals on truly awesome fish in the Saturday Night Rare Fish Auction.... fish that I've never seen before... for ridiculously low prices.

There were a couple of dozen raffle prizes...a lot of them $25, $35, $50, $75, $100 gift cards for vendors in the Marketplace (and with whom we did group buys and/or were sponsors).

And that's not even getting into the value of four awesome speakers, free beer and food on Friday and Saturday, free T-shirt, free goodies/samples, getting to hang out with fellow hobbyists, supporting the club, etc.

Matt
Click to expand...


Is that all I get? ;)


How much for one rib? :p
 
dogofwar

dogofwar

CCA Members
We had about as many folks only come to Marketplace as registered for the whole convention...which is great. But how do we get some portion of those folks to register?

Matt

cichlidaddicted said:
I thought about the same thing. In reality I got double that in free stuff, I saved double that on fish purchased there rather than in a retail setting. I saved that much on shipping from the pre orders, and that much again on discounted dry goods from the market place. Thats only the monetary value. I also heard and met great speakers, met a ton of fellow hobbyists learned a ton saw stuff I've never seen........ there is no end to the benifits.

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Click to expand...
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
It may not be popular but only offer one admission the 35$ flat rate. If they only want to do the market place thats fine I still think its worth the money.

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Becca

Becca

Members
cichlidaddicted said:
It may not be popular but only offer one admission the 35$ flat rate. If they only want to do the market place thats fine I still think its worth the money.

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Click to expand...

Alternately, you could make the marketplace less of a discount. For instance, if the marketplace is $20, why not pay the extra $15 and get the full show?

Also, I think it would be nice to have some "family" registration options. I think Jeremy would've liked to see Shane's talk, but it was the only one he was interested in and we couldn't justify spending $35 for him to see one talk. I didn't notice that a lot of registrants took advantage of the hospitality suites or other things where "per person" expenses might get thrown off by a family rate (e.g. $45 for family - includes 2 adult wristbands to the marketplace and access to the talks, raffles, etc - maybe charge an extra $10 per kids over 12).

Maybe I'm completely off base.

Also, that'd make a full registration a REAL savings for families if the marketplace price were raised to $20... Just saying.
 
cichlidaddicted

cichlidaddicted

Members
I agree, maybe not one flat rate but a much closer rate for people to justify the upgrade. Or, and this may be very difficult to pull off, but ask vendors to offer a discount for registered guests as opposed to non registered even if its five percent. Or word it like this, instead of asking for a discount ask them to mark up regular price 5% for non registered guests. Make a price list with two columns registered vs nonregistered.

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CichlidOWNR

CichlidOWNR

Members
Maybe a change in marketing wording. Registered users already get one free raffle ticket. Change the wording to a "Door prize" in the marketing material and list the drawing at a particular time (can and probably should be separate for the actual raffle that occurs on saturday) in the schedule. Just need to make sure a donated item is valuable enough but not so valuable to cannibalize potential money from the raffle that is held. People like the word free, doesn't really matter if it is or not just that they receive or perceive to receive some value. For example, just like in this year's raffle, have a 40 gal breeder , but the door prize would be a 5 gal kit or a smaller breeder size. Just a thought.
 
Becca

Becca

Members
CichlidOWNR said:
Maybe a change in marketing wording. Registered users already get one free raffle ticket. Change the wording to a "Door prize" in the marketing material and list the drawing at a particular time (can and probably should be separate for the actual raffle that occurs on saturday) in the schedule. Just need to make sure a donated item is valuable enough but not so valuable to cannibalize potential money from the raffle that is held. People like the word free, doesn't really matter if it is or not just that they receive or perceive to receive some value. For example, just like in this year's raffle, have a 40 gal breeder , but the door prize would be a 5 gal kit or a smaller breeder size. Just a thought.
Click to expand...

I actually completely missed that I got a free raffle ticket.
 
jonclark96

jonclark96

Past CCA President
There wasn't a raffle ticket included in registration, but a vote in the AB competition was included.
 
rich_one

rich_one

Members
As an IT professional, I tend to use the KISS method (Keep It Simple, Stupid). One registration fee. $35. The end.

My two cents, as it is.

-Rich
 
CichlidOWNR

CichlidOWNR

Members
Mixed the aquarium beautiful ballot with the raffle ticket together for this year's Am. Nevertheless, the concept is the important part here regarding the door prize idea.

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