Sorry, I was trying not to sound too negative because I don't want to quell anyone's excitement.
Okay well to start my day off back in September when Macna was here, about 20 minutes before myself and a buddy were about to head out, my dog gets run over by the UPS truck in front of my house and nearly dies. We rush her to the vet, then to an animal hospital where we were told she would almost certainly recover, but needed at least 3 surgeries. There went every dime I had saved for MACNA, 4 times over.
So I go anyway, thought it would be best to get my head someplace else. Of course, I must admit that none of this is MACNA's fault (though if I hadn't been going that day, the dog never would have gotten hit...
)
Anyhow, I found it to first and foremost very small. Some of the big vendors I wanted to see didn't even show up, though they were listed as being there. Marine Depot didn't show, and a lot of the local vendors didn't show. MACNA wouldn't give us this information until AFTER we paid for the tickets.
2Docs was there, who I looked forward to because of their livestock selection, but they had just ONE 15 gallon tank set up, of which nothing was for sale. The reps from the company apparently wanted to chat more amongst themselves than pay any attention to me or anyone else attending the show.
Deltec was there, and I was looking forward to talking to them since I own a Deltec skimmer, but again, I got completely ignored there also.
There was a vendor there that I was REALLY looking forward to seeing because they sold the GHL/Profilux controllers. However, they also sell rare zoas, so they were so busy getting frags for people they wouldn't even talk to me. All I got was a "Oh, I don't know anything about that unit" when I found someone to ask, and when I asked if they had any at the show, in spite of the fact that they told me the prior week that they would have some there, he said they did not. Nice.
I guess I was looking forward to a trade show where I would get to meet the vendors who I have worked with for years, but either they weren't there or I got ignored, and those who were there were too busy selling crappy frags to pay any attention (read: ignored).
Now, that all said, I walked out of there with a few really nice, really rare frags that I got for some really good prices. You can also score equipment dirt cheap because a lot of the vendors would rather sell it at a loss than pay to ship it back home, so go on the first day, bring cash, and put down offers on stuff, but you won't be able to pick it up until after the show is over on the last day. I found that out the hard way by going on day 2, most everything had already been spoken for, but I wasn't really looking for anything anyway. I didn't take part in the raffles.
Would I go again? Absolutely, but I would never drive more than a few hours to get there, and I certainly wouldn't have the expectations I did before.
PS: SWF.com wasn't there, which is too bad, but they never said they were GOING to be there so it wasn't like they did anything wrong.
