Keystone Clash

[TwoTankAmin]

This forum has no appropriate place to post this, so I picked here.

I am essentially getting out of the hobby due to old age. I am on a two year glide path for doing this. A major part of this involves selling pretty much everything fish related i have. Towards that end I am signed up to be in the vendor room of the Keystone Clash weekend in Morgantown, PA Sept. 22 - 24.

This will be my first and only time at this event which has a great reputation. They are already approaching 200 weekend registrations and this doesn't include day trippers or shoppers who come solely for the vendor room and/or the big Sunday auction.

Those who have attended this sort of event know how much fun they can be. 3+ days immersed in the world of fish and nobody looks at you funny when you say you have 50 tanks in your basement....

If any folks here will be at the event, stop by my vendor booth against the wall someplace. If for no other reason than to say hi and talk some fish. Of course, I will be selling some very nice B&W fish at decent prices. I will also be selling lots of used equipment in excellent shape and working great. I have all sorts of things I need to move out between now and the end of next spring. Here is a copy of my material they will use in their promo for this event which is hosted by a pair of great clubs in PA:

Two Clubs Hosting The Clash -->Aquarium Club of Lancaster County and The Cichlid Club of York

(Mods- if the blow violates Forum policy I understand it should be deleted. However, I would hope the rest of the info can stay.)

 

[connorlindeman]

Sounds like fun. Thats roughly 2 and 1/2 hours from where I live. I wish I could stop by, but I probably won't make it. Have fun!

 

[TwoTankAmin]

It was an interesting weekend, a lot of work and a bunch of fun.

Firstly, A number of years ago a very nice lady from California tracked me down to buy some of the plecos which I breed. We became voice phone and email friends but never met, until the Clash, She flew to NY and arrived at my local airport tuesday early evening. We talked a lot of fish and she saw all of my tanks. I had spent the prior week packing up hard goods.

Wednesday we bagged fish all day into the evening stopping only to fetch the U-Haul van I used for the event. We packed wednesday and Thursday and had a 3 hour drive to the even and arrived at about 6:15.

My friend had a good friend from NJ and she also worked my booth and helped as well. They had a few big gents alos friends at the event and they helped me unload and reload on Sunday. We had to get 7 tanks (a 29, 5 x 20L and a 10 up, filled to temp. and then the fish unbagged and into them. They had to keep the vendor room open and extra 16 minutes past the 10 pm closing for us.

I only sild 10 fish, but they were 1/2 of my total sales. The rest were a lot of plants from my tanks, a tond of dirftwood- some fvery huge and then an assortment of new and used hardware. These two ladies were incredible, I could never have doe the event without their help. And they both whent home with some very expensive fish at no charge and some of the palnats wood and equipment I was sellingm but they got it at 50% off and some even cheaper.

I have been to both nocer hotels and vendor rooms, but the people were as nice as any event I have attended. When I wasn't selling or trying to steal a few hours sleep I had a lot of fun. I was likely the oldest vendor there but probably not the oldest attendee. Because my friend from CA said she will do it again next year, so will I even if I am just attending and no longer selling.

The two nice things i was able to do was do be sponsor of the event and then to donate 5% of my fish sales to Ictio Xingu. Theis project is run by Leandro Sousa whom I met at CatCon last Oct. His friend Andreas Tanke was a speaker and I gave him a donation from the sales of my fish from the Rio Xingu which he will deliver to Leandro when he sees him in a few weeks.

 

[Back in the fold]

Always wanted to go to one of those big shows and geek out with all the other fish people but I’m hundreds of miles away . I bet that was a great time .

 

[TwoTankAmin]

They are. You can talk fish all day and night with like minded fish nut. Plus you see and learn a lot. You see folks from too far away to see any other time too, And the best part is you can talk to some of the most well know people in the world on fish subjects.

Even though I am ramping way down and will not be breeding any more, I will still attend events as long as I am able.