Its been a couple days since we got back and I'm ready to share my experiences of Macna 2018.
This is my third Macna in a row and the first thing I noticed was the absence of some big names. Aquaforest, Vertex and Royal Exclusive just to name a few. There was also very little hardware on display, compared to New Orleans and San Diego. The only cool new hardware I saw was the AI Nero wavemaker and a controllable AC pump, of which I forget the name, but is highlighted in Mr. Saltwater Tanks video on Macna 2018. Overall the convention floor was a HUGE dissapointment.
The Friday night social event was ok, just a pool party at the hotel with great snack food and a really average cover band who were also local reefers. Not at all comparable to New Orleans or San Diego, again.
The Saturday night banquet was very interesting. The venue and food were fantastic, but that's where it ended. Speeches went on forever, including one by Dr. John 'Charlie' Vernon. He is called the Grandfather Of Reefing because of his 40 years of research on the Great Barrier Reef, and you may know him from the documentary 'Chasing Coral'. The poor guy rambled on for about an hour and a half, repeating things multiple times and overall painting a picture of ultimate gloom. Walt Smith also received a lifetime achievement award and gave a farewell speech, as the government of Fiji has pretty much shut him down from exporting. There was also a debacle during the Fiji trip giveaway, but more on that later.
This was the first year that a Macna was not organized by a local club, for reasons which I am not aware. MASNA was responsible for organizing and they received some serious backlash, mainly for the problems involving volunteers and raffle tickets. I'm not going to go into anymore details here, as there is a great thread on R2R started by DaveJep that sheds light on the whole situation, and is well worth the read. It also includes the deatails of the Fiji trip giveaway, that was won by the same people who won last year. Oh my.
This will be my last Macna for the foreseeable future, unless it happens to be in Seattle. Hopefully MASNA can work out the bugs if they continue to organize it. I also think they will need to lower their prices for vendor space, if they want to attract the big names back.
This trip was saved by the fact that we were in Vegas with lots to do, and that we were with several amazing local reefers who have become very close friends over the last few years. We made some lasting memories for sure that can't be shared.... because.... LAS VEGAS!
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