Project Aware
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This is opening day for the 2009 Diving Equipment and Marketing Association trade show. They have it in various venues from year to year; this year is Orlando. I drove up yesterday. Captains Rich and Carol will arrive this afternoon and our retail sales (Ship’s Store) director, Chrystene, arrives Thursday night. DEMA has many facets including dive travel, new scuba products (everything from decals to t-shirts to dive boats), the opportunity to compare products, continuing education courses, equipment repair technician courses and a chance to sit face to face with the industry people that I spend so much time with on the phone. Please read more…
My personal missions for today are to get my show pass (more on this in a moment), attend a PADI con-ed segment on qualifying for the Course Director Training Course (something I probably won’t do but I promised my boss I would give him a full report when I get back) and walk the show floor.
First, just getting into DEMA has always been a difficult task. The company that organizes the show seems to have a lot of issues. It has gotten a little better in the 20 years that I have been coming, but not much. This is NOT a consumer show. It is for dive store owners, dive resort owners, travel agents, etc. They don’t really sell merchandise at the show, but they do take orders; generally not individual orders but store type orders Despite the fact that we registered in advanced, paid in advance, and sent DEMA all the requested documents to prove we are in the scuba business (receipts for orders over $10k, copy of Tax Certificate, business cards, etc.) I almost guarantee some type of debacle at registration.
The CDTC class is to tell wanna be Course Directors what they need to do before applying and how the few applicants are chosen. Paul, the General Manager at Sea Base, wants me to become a Course Director. I was hot to trot to become one 5 years ago or so but we couldn’t work out the logistics of me being gone for 3 weeks during the summer. The price is another issue; well over $10k. I will attend the course as promised and report back to my bosses next week.
After that, I will walk the floor and look at displays. That will take a couple of hours – it is a HUGE show, covering acres of space. I will make notes about which vendors I want to visit with in ernest and go back to them over the course of the next 3 or 4 days. I’ll report back tonight or in the morning.