My wife often complains that they could rob us blind and I would never wake up to hear it and she is right. I am a sound sleeper, even if I drink a giant Dunkin Donut coffee at midnight I usually still fall asleep within minutes. Not only that, but you could probably have a party with a mariachi band downstairs and I would never hear it. That’s why my daughter’s nightly 2 hour clarinet practices do not faze me. My wife on the other hand can hear a pin drop.
Hey , someone has to be awake in case something goes wrong
lol
So to say that I was surprised two nights ago to be starring at celling at 10PM then 11 Then 12AM , 1,2 and all the way to 4 AM when i got up more tired then when I went to sleep. I guess I had an anxiety attack which is another strange thing considering anxiety is something i know nothing about and have never experienced. Sing of old age? Could be but its probably something else…something called a Striper Day.
I wont bore you with the fact you already know. That we could not find a bigger venue and seminar facilities close to each other (I guess jocks and arts rarely mix for facilities to be in proximity of each other?). Which left us with Hofstra, a facilities I personally love but I wish they were bigger. Tommy loves the feel of “cramped show” , to him it “feels” like a surfcasting show. We spoke to people at Suffolk CC in Brentwood about their gigantic facility (and got a gigantic sticker $hock) and lack of large theater. Hey, if one day you guys decide you want Striper Day to be just as surf fishing flea market, man would that make MY life sooooooo much easier. No speakers or seminars, all you need is a a big cavernous room and some tables and call it a day. Maybe that day will come too but as you can see at some LI (and NJ) Flea Markets there are no rod companies, VS or many custom plug builders.
Why am I writing this? i have no idea, sometimes the words just spill out and this one finger of mine (yes, still typing with a single finger) keeps pecking. So what is different this year ?
I would bet good money its going to be crowded. But i would NOT encourage any one to came early to Hofstra to be early on line.
- its private school closed at night. The security will not let anyone wait on line any earlier then THEY decide
- If my kid was a student at Hofstra , would I want bunch of strangers roaming around student activity center in early morning hours? Do you really have to think about correct answer here? Although college break is in full swing, Hofstra has a ton of international students present on campus and those taking Winter Classes.
Back to crowds
We thought about zillion different ways of trying to encourage people not to all come at same time. Last year, by offering a tackle bag to first 50 or 500 attendees we were doing exactly that. We thought about only selling advance tickets on line (something that will probably be revisited in future) but then had to deal with very pissed off people who refuse to get anything on line. If you haven’t noticed the surfcasters are not most technologically advanced people. Do you know how many phone calls i field that go like this :
“ You people robed me. I subscribed to your magazine and the mailman never brings the copy. Its been six months!!!”
We thought about two session, morning and afternoon, that idea is not fair to vendors or attendees so we dropped that. We thought about staggered opening, again, so many damned issues with anything we thought off.
So we are going to try this. We know some plugholics need to get a first crack at shiny plugs. We respect that. That is why we are going to give away 400 bags of tackle goodie from Super Strike, Otter Tails, Hogy, Al Gag’s, Tsunami, Gamakatsu and Spro to those who come after 11 AM.
Again, we have in total probably 700 or so lures to giveaway. But only those with paid admission AFTER 11 AM will get the table assortment bags. Yes , we are trying to encourage some people to come later in the morning.
We only have 50 of these special ET Super Strike poppers. And we know if we gave them up to first 50 people at 11 AM, those people would line up at 5 am and clog the lobby all morning.
So for example we will insert these Super Strike plugs into RANDOM tackle giveaway bags. Your chance of getting one of these plugs after 11 AM are equal because no one other than I will even know where these plugs are inserted. Talk about mystery gift bags.
And I do have to thank many of you for your kindness last year after seeing me almost on a verge of a mental breakdown, for giving me a ear to listen to. I know I never thanked all of you. I appreciate your support and your kind words. I promise I will try to delegate some more task to our great staff and not try to do it all. I cant help it, I take everything we do at Surfcaster’s Journal personally. Some people say I have thin skin because I get upset when people are not happy with publication, t-shirt or the show but I prefer to think that I give a crap. Because the easiest thing is to say is , hey, take it or leave it. But to me, thats never been my style. Either we give you all we got, or we walk away with out heads up but no half assed effort.
So we are looking forward to seeing you, please be patient and know we are doing the best we can.
oh yeah, last thing
This year raffle (its on striperday.com) you do NOT need to be present to win. Just fill in the raffle ticket with your name and # and we will arrange pick up if you win a prize
PS
Late addition to the blog..just got over 200 of these Hogy Pro Tails to include in the gift packs after 11 AM
Man these REALLY are NICE!!!!!!
