I wanted to start off to say THANK YOU to the A2 Reef Club and CR for putting on a good swap! Both my daughter and I had a lot of fun! It was obvious that you put a good amount of time promoting the swap since you had a fantastic turnout. It was the best Michigan swap that I have been to. I’d give the swap an overall “B”. Mainly because I think that it needs to be more friendly to the swapper. This swap was more catered to the vendors.

I’ll admit that I am quite spoiled by the All-Ohio swaps. They do a phenomenal job with theirs. Yours was the closest that I have been to in Michigan to compare. I do have some recommendations to make the swap more tradeable for the little guy. I had two corals that I wanted to either trade or sell, but could not find the opportunity to show them or find someone that may want them. I was pretty disappointed in it.

Pre-Sales: Use Fragswapper only! The thread method is hard to follow and page through to see what is available and what is not. You can see instantly what is available and can sort out the items that are not. Fragswapper is so easy to make a request, sort by what is available, and you can also generate your trade lists by a couple of clicks then print it. I saw that you had the swap on Fragswapper, just eliminate the “What are you bringing?” threads.

Facility Size: It was too small for the crowd you drew – This is a GOOD thing! Go bigger and better next year! We could hardly move or socialize without feeling in the way of others. It was also very hard to get to some of the vendor tables. I did not see every table because I could not get to them.

Name Tags: Put them right at the entrance and have everyone wear them. It was so hard to find the people that we made pre-sales with because we did not know who they were. We had a few corals that were promised to someone, but never ended up finding them, so they came home with us.

Vendor tables: They were so close together and there were no spaces for them to get in or out of their booths. Spread out a bit.

Empty tables: Have some space for the little guy to take a break and set out a few of his unsold corals that he would like to trade – first come first serve on these. They shouldn’t have power or anything available. Just some tables and a few chairs. Honestly, I usually stay the entire duration of a swap but did not due to there being no place to break away for a short time.

Raffle: You had a lot of nice stuff at the raffle, but there was also a lot of items that I had no interest in. Honestly, I did not purchase any tickets because I did not like the format. At the All Ohio swaps, they set up a larger raffle area and have a cup for every item. The swappers can enter for the items that they want. Normally, I buy about $20 - $40 in tickets to win the stuff that I want. I couldn’t see dropping the cash on it to end up with a brown zoa or some other dry good that I didn’t want or need. I decided to spend that money with the vendors instead.

Overall, nice job and I look forward to next year!

Jen