I arrived Friday late and did not get to the hall until early Saturday morning.
It rained that morning like Noah was in town- wow.
We set up the booth (Diverite) and waited for the storm of divers.
We were so busy that I did not get a chance to attend any of the seminars. Ron mentioned that he had 29 people in his adv wreck diving seminar alone.
I was thrilled to meet so many divers and get to hear there opinion of gear and what they wanted and were looking for. Great insight and very useful.
Most of my day was spent explaining the Diverite Optima rebreather and reviewing how the system worked. We fitted numerous people for Transpacs, Wings, backplates and harnesses. Often people seemed to over look the new hurricane regulator and the 24watt HID lights. The hand held 10 watt was very popular with a lot of divers.
If we would have sold gear at this event I would have cleared about five grand without doing any work. Numerous divers approached us asking us to sell gear or who locally who sold Diverite gear. Many divers seemed disappointed with the manufacture turn out. OK, enough of that.
Locally on my isle there was a lot of travel. Plus, reef photo had an excellent booth with a series of cameras, strobes and cases for all levels and types. I spent sometime there with their crew comparing different underwater cases. Very helpful- excellent job guys.
Silent Diving Systems had a booth, so did Zeagle as mentioned- I just did not have time to stop by I saw Jim in passing he waived and was very friendly. SDI /TDI had a booth with lots of literature. Poseidon was right next to them and the rep also had his personal rebreather the out for display. Ocean Corp commercial dive training had a CCR2000 rebreather with a custom helmet- very nice.
My award for friendliest/craziest booth goes to Gulf Diving. Captain Frank was running around with multi-color hats with his flowing red hair. Every time I walked by they were just covered with people.
Everyone that I meet from volunteers to event staff was excellent. If I asked a question it was answered and everyone was very helpful and smiling. That can be tough at 8am with it pouring it down outside. My hats off to everyone that worked so hard to make this event a success. If people want change I would suggest getting involved and making next session bigger and better. The management team always needs feedback and this could be made into the biggest show of the year for Texas and all of our sounding communities.
Lets be positive and make the manufactures want to attend this show.
Regards, Andrew
pictures to follow.