SoCal Mermaid Convention ~ Kelpstock 2017

[Mermaid Wesley]

What does the west coast have? Sun, sand, surf, and coming June 2017, an all new Mermaid Convention!

Kelpstock is an mermaid expo starting up in sunny Southern California. It will encompass mermaids, swimming, modeling, and much more.
One of our very special guests that we have lined up for you is the one and only: Thom Shouse! The artist behind “Splash!” and many other on screen mermaids. Some may even say that he started the whole mermaid movement! We have waves of other amazing activities scheduled for those who attend: exhibit hall, panels, swim meet-ups, mermaids, and much more!!

Like us on Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/KelpStock/) and follow us on Twitter and Instagram @Kelpstock for updates, exclusives and more!


We hope to see you there!

Mermaid Wesley and Team Kelpstock

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[malinghi]

I'M SO PUMPED

[Ashton]

AWWWWWWW YEEEEEAAAAAAAAAH!

[Mermaid Clarity]

AWWWW YISSSSS MUTHAF@#$N' KELPSTOCK

[Little_Orca]

I will have to keep my eyes open. I was born near LA, but have been living in Oregon for the last 26 years. ;)

[AniaR]

Sean and I are for hire if you get a budget hehe. Just flights and accommodation and well stay with someone!

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[Mermaid Clarity]

BTW, we are planning some events for Kelpstock other than just swimming! If you want to suggest ideas for panels, events and other fun stuffs you can here: http://mernetwork.com/index/showthread.php?12761-Panels-and-Preferences-for-mermaid-conventions


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[Mermaid Clara]

Oh my scales!!!! I want to go so bad!!!! I'm so lonely because I never get to see any other mer because my lack of a drivers license and a car and money.


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[Mermaid Wesley]

Oh my scales!!!! I want to go so bad!!!! I'm so lonely because I never get to see any other mer because my lack of a drivers license and a car and money.


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We know the feeling! There hasn't really been a big convention on the west coast yet, and one of the driving ideas behind this was to make Mermaiding more accessible to more people, introducing it to the public a bit more, and, of course, giving western mermaids a bit more access to a con!



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[Ashton]

And the So Cali has great weather, how could we not make it a thing!

[Calizaire]

It'd be practically criminal if we didn't use our beautiful beaches!!
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[malinghi]

Calizaire, which beach is that? It looks amazing!

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[Calizaire]

Sunset Cliffs! San Diego. One of my faves. My avatar pic was taken there.

[Grey Gambit]

Oh dang, I'll have to keep my fingers crossed I can go to this. It's so much closer than the other cons!

[MerMaisy]

*starts saving up sandollars*

[Mermaid Wesley]

Perks of Southern California:

Beaches galore
Tourist attractions all over the place! Make it a vacation!
Best weather in the world
Oh and I'm here ;D *hairflip*

Lol


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[Ashton]

Yes that is a thought we considered, you can make it into a vacation! Disneyland, Hollywood, beaches, And so much more!


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[Mermaid Galene]

Oh, I'm glad my brain finally engaged and realized we're talking about 2017! No way I could have made a trip in June 2016. But next year? Heck yeah! I'm in!

[Ashton]

yes we didn't want it to seem last minute for people, that is why it is 2017 not this year. Plus it gives people time to save money and for us to plan some pretty epic things for you!

[Saelyyia]

I'm so glad to see this in the works. My boyfriend, thinks I'm a bit loopy since I printed out the kelpstock image to hang next to my mer-gear. But what a better way to stay excited for it right?

[Ashton]

I don't think that is loopy at all! If anything that makes me and the whole team super happy that you are excited!!


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[Mermaid Wesley]

That's awesome!


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[Ashton]

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[Mermaid Coralia]

AAHHH cali is so far from michigan :cry:

MAYBE I CAN CONVINCE THE MERHANDLER

[Saelyyia]

http://uploads.tapatalk-cdn.com/20160307/736098104dcfd37292782058cafa435a.jpg


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[Ashton]

Haha! Well its not till next year, so start selling' your gadgets, gizmos, whozits, and whatzit. You have time to save up for this epic event!

[Waves of Ash]

I swear, when I found out that there was going to be a mermaid convention in California, I lost my marbles! I am SO EXCITED. I've never actually been to a mermaid convention since that is unheard of in Arizona and well... the West Coast in general. I want to finally meet fellow mermaids and mermen who are as passionate about everything mer as I am.. if not more so!!

[SirenAngel]

I've always wondered why mermaids aren't more of a thing here! Hoping to hear more about this as it gets closer!!!!

[Saelyyia]

Any progress on the planning for KelpStock?

[Mermaid Clara]

Any updates? My friend and I would love to come!


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[Mer Coralia]

Same! For us west coast mers not going to Mermania next year, this sounds awesome! <3

I'm so excited to see what rolls out :D

How big will the planning committee be?

[fishboy]

I'll definitely look into being there! Sounds like fun!

[TritonsGuard]

Where specifically is the convention going to be?

[thatotakugalaxy]

I wish i could come;( california is awhile away from me


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[Mer Coralia]

The Facebook page says the planning is on hiatus, it's almost March and this is supposed to be in June? I'm a little worried how this is going to turn out. =/

Granted I'm not expecting it to be like Mermania but planning a convention does take time and quite a bit of preparation. Has anyone heard anything?

[Lorelei Edelweiss]

Their website domain, " kelpstock.com ", has been released and is now for sale. Not a good sign :(

[Lorelei Edelweiss]

[Edit: Ashton says she still has a fin in around California, even though she moved to TX! :) ]

Mermaid Wesley, Ashton, and Selkish had indicated in this thread that they were involved in the planning. The tides have turned for Ashton and she has recently moved to Texas, so it would probably be too hard for her to be a part of a Kelpstock type event. Selkish has not been posting lately at this site. Mermaid Wesley is still very active posting to this site. If anyone would still like to see an event like this happen in SoCal, I would suggest they reach out to Mermaid Wesley to see if she'd like some help in planning for the future.

I think one thing to keep in mind is it would be very hard to get insurance for an event if there was any activity on a beach or in ocean water. Insurance balks at anything where swimmer safety would be difficult to promise. So a very important part of a mer event would be deciding upon a place that has a swimming pool (or pools) that would be perfect for the posing/preening/swimming parts of the event.

Hugs to all!

[Khaleesi Daenerys]

The hotel del Coronado is right next to the beach has one pool next to it and two others elsewhere on the premises. It even has its own private part of the beach. I wish I had heard about this earlier I would really love this to happen.

[Khaleesi Daenerys]

Also that hotel doesn't have a ban on mermaid tails and even has a exercise class with them in one of their pools! :D They also sell the tails, and rent them. They said they don't mind if you bring your own tail, so I know they don't have a tail ban in their pools. :D

[Mermaid Wesley]

I should update here I suppose.

This event is on indefinite hold. :(

We all have human jobs and responsibilities to worry about that are keeping us from working towards this. HOPEFULLY the Kelpstock team will be hosting smaller meetups this supper, testing the waters for this event happening in the future.

We appreciate all your enthusiasm, and hopefully this will come together at some point in the future.

[Mermaid Clarity]

Coming back from my apparent hiatus to second Wesley's comment.

We were working on this. Kelpstock was my baby and I dedicated a lot of time to sort it out. We worked incredibly hard and I was willing to go very broke to make happen. The truth is that conventions and things in the capacity that I wanted to make it happen are EXPENSIVE and require a lot of legal work and responsibility that a lot of people did not want to shoulder (with good reason.) it got to the point where a professional party planner told me to stop for fear I'd put myself in a financial and legal position I might not be able to come back from. Still the enthusiasm everyone has is AMAZING and is a good indication that we know we'll have support in the future.

Honestly, the best thing any of you guys can do right now to make Kelpstock happen would be to brainstorm fundraising. Planning these things is like having two full time jobs, both of which don't pay.


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[Ashton]

^^Exactly . We priced it out and needed about $30,000+ to do it the way we wanted to. We wanted make it an amazing experience for everyone, and we wanted to do it the right way.

Our ideas were fun and realistic, it wasn't like we were trying to do something crazy. Everything costs more in Los Angeles, and especially in summer.


Next to the beach = $$$$$ . (hotel was had their own pool, but was across the street from a lagoon where a lot of the swim ideas were going to happen)
Insurance= $$$$$$ .
Summer time! = beach hotel busy season = $$$$$$
Having a dance= $$$
Having panels = $$ (not many, just a few to start off with, but that meant booking more event space)
Advertising= $$$



And by the way, EVEN thought I am in Texas, does not mean that I am not connected still to California and all my friends in it. In fact, I am here right now.
So if you could not make assumptions about my life, that would be great.:mermaid kiss:

[malinghi]

I'm very impressed with the work that was put in to kelpstock, and I'm still optimistic about it down the road.

By the way, to put into perspective the challenges of putting this together without going broke, I was reading a news article about the ill fated Fyre Festival that you've all probably heard of by now, and the news story pointed out that most festivals lose money their first year, including Coachella. Hearing that one of the biggest and most successful annual events in the country lost money the first year was a sobering reality check.

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[Khaleesi Daenerys]

And by the way, EVEN thought I am in Texas, does not mean that I am not connected still to California and all my friends in it. In fact, I am here right now.
So if you could not make assumptions about my life, that would be great.:mermaid kiss:

Who questioned you? That's not cool. :pirate:

[AniaR]

It cost around 34-35,000$ to put on mermania. It's no easy task at all, people have ZERO idea. And that's just with everyone involved volunteering and no one being paid a cent. And that was in North Carolina lol

[Lorelei Edelweiss]

Mermaid Wesley, Selkish, and Ashton: Thank you for updating everyone. We were all very curious!

Khaleesi: When the thread went quiet, I dug around trying to find answers, so I was the one who speculated that if Ashton had moved to TX, it might be too hard for her to still help with a CA event. Ashton subsequently gave us an update indicating that she doesn't find that distance a problem, especially since she can visit CA.

Ashton: Sorry about that! I've updated my earlier post.

Everybody: A lot of events start small their first year and then grow annually and slowly so as not to break their bank at any point along the way. If you look back through event histories you often see an event that was first a two-hour gathering or dinner, then an afternoon event, then a full-day event, then a two-day event, then a two-day event with a hotel involved, etc etc etc.

Years ago I was involved in a special-interest online chatroom club that eventually met up in a small hotel room for a weekend. The next year one of us booked a hotel conference room too, so we could all gather with more space. Later years saw rental of the hotel ballroom and the addition of vendors. That event has over the years gotten bigger and bigger, changed venues, changed cities, updated the name, and currently starts on Thursday night and runs through Sunday, with dozens of vendors and hundreds of enthusiasts in attendance. So yup, gradual growth is safest.

With that in mind, if we could support this CA team with an initial small gathering that wouldn't cost them $ out of their own pockets -- many of us would need to be willing to do quite a drive to show our support -- then they could ponder safe growth from such a starting point. If anyone even has a backdoor pool and would be willing to host an afternoon/evening gathering this summer, that would be something. Hugs to all!

[Mermaid Clarity]

Lorelei: there have been talks about doing something smaller. And in general the mermaids local to SoCal do get together for meet ups in the summer (though there's been some drama regarding the pod that's slowed us down in that regard. Quelle suprise.) Making the jump from a bunch of fish hanging in a pool to an EVENT is the hard part and we're a LARGE pod even without out of town guests. Don't worry though. Without giving too much away... things are... being considered


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[Ashton]

We want Kelpstock to work, but we need to get a few things figured out first. It is not 100% dead- lets just call it "on hiatus" .

[Lorelei Edelweiss]

Thank you for the replies, Selkish and Ashton :)

[Ashton]

@ Lorelie: No prob :)

[Black.Pearl]

If Kelpstock is on hiatus, why not organize just like a meet at a beach. Nothing to fancy, who ever wants to go. There's a place in corona Del Mar that would be perfect. I personally would just love to meet other Merfolk and hang out at the beach.


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[Mermaid Clarity]

Black Pearl, smaller meet ups are usually handled via the pod Facebook group or the forum here. https://m.facebook.com/groups/271568969577492 there are definitely a couple already planned or being executed. I think a lot of us are just holding off until it warms up. If you're a cali mermaid, you should totally organize something!


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[Khaleesi Daenerys]

I'd be happy with even a small meetup nearby once in awhile. Pool or beach both are fine with me. I'm not on Facebook though so I can't see the meets on there.

[Mermaid Wesley]

I'd be happy with even a small meetup nearby once in awhile. Pool or beach both are fine with me. I'm not on Facebook though so I can't see the meets on there.

Ah theres your problem. I'll try to remember to post about meetups on here the next time we have one. I made a facebook specifically because most of the meetups are coordinated there. When its warmer, we usually have quite a few meetups.

[Merman Storm]

There is a mer-friendly pool near me that is heated all year.

[Ashton]

If you are looking for meet ups, I recommend looking on the facebook. That is the best place to find them. But make sure to do the OFFICIAL facebook group: The California Merfolk Pod https://www.facebook.com/groups/271568969577492/?ref=br_rs

[Khaleesi Daenerys]

Ah theres your problem. I'll try to remember to post about meetups on here the next time we have one. I made a facebook specifically because most of the meetups are coordinated there. When its warmer, we usually have quite a few meetups.
Thank you Wesley :)

[Mermaid Clarity]

Lorelei, you've been added


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