In the United States, middle age is generally considered to start at age 40. California Diving News is 41. Initially, we weren’t sure how to feel about being middle aged, but a friend recently pointed out that California Diving News is currently the oldest print scuba diving magazine in publication in North America. How about that?!
The first-ever Scuba Show was held in 1988 and ranks as the third-oldest consumer diving event in the USA – and the only one on the west coast.
We’re proud of our longstanding presence in the scuba industry. To celebrate, we thought we’d look back at how CDN and Scuba Show got their starts.
California Diving News
By CDN Co-founders Dale and Kim Sheckler
It was 1984. After I left a successful career in commercial diving, my wife Kim and I decided that despite not having much experience in publishing, we’d start a scuba magazine. We were already busy raising our two young boys, but California Diving News became our new baby.
Kim kept her job as an RN, working the late shift at a local hospital. She returned in the early mornings in time for us to get the kids fed and off to school. Kim would then work at her job as CDN’s accountant while I hammered away on the magazine’s content and chased ad sales. We worked together co-authoring articles, and Kim was also my dive buddy and underwater model. Friends and family helped feed and babysit the kids during deadline crunches. Neither of us slept much during those early days. In fact, I spent a night in the hospital being treated for exhaustion the day I sold our first magazine ad.
Somehow, we survived those first few years, and the magazine gained traction. Next, we published a few diving guidebooks, which also proved successful.
The early shows ran on the power, hard work and talents of family and friends. Post-show pizza parties and a group photo were a must. The parties usually took place in the largest historical suite on the Queen Mary. Guest of honor at these parties was always the pizza delivery guy (in the center with a bewildered look on his face).
From the top, clockwise: The 1992 show; the 2003 show; T-shirt art from the 1999 show aboard the Queen Mary.
The Start of Scuba Show
In 1988 we decided to try our hand at running a consumer diving event. Once again, we had zero experience, but a lot of enthusiasm and the support of family and friends. Kim had been doing a great job handling the financial side of our business, and we both agreed it was time for her to leave her nursing career to become the CFO of Scuba Show.
We picked a venue based on how many exhibit spaces we guessed we might sell, about 100. Oddly or intentionally, it was the hotel where Kim and I spent our Honeymoon night, the Sheraton La Reina at LAX. The event coordinator at the hotel was a big help but could only do so much. We laid out the exhibit spaces, hired our first “decorator,” and set the framework of the show and we were off!
We sold exhibit space by sending letters and faxes (this was pre-email), making phone calls and hitting the road to press the flesh. Selling the exhibit space was challenging, but we eventually sold all 100 spots.
Other hurdles to conquer included soliciting and gathering door prizes, setting up a fashion show, putting together a printed program, and assembling and judging a photo contest.
Now we had to bring the attendees. We had a readership of about 12,000 with California Diving News, so we heavily promoted the event in the publication and by reaching out to dive centers, charter boats, and dive clubs.
Then another realization hit us — we had no staffing for the show. We would need directors for each department and worker bees for seminars, badges, ticket sales, ticket takers, seminar sales and registration, film festival, demo pool and more. Here our tight-knit family and friends were our saviors! But would anyone show up? At that first show we did no preregistration or advanced ticket sales – only purchases at the door. It was a shot in the dark.
They did show up. First hundreds, then thousands. A little over 5,000 showed up that initial weekend. Exhibitors were happy, attendees were happy, we were happy.
Requests for exhibit space for the 1989 show exploded.
We expanded the Scuba Show 1989 by moving to the Queen Mary, an icon of the Long Beach skyline. The exhibit hall was three floors of what was once the elegant ship’s boiler room. It had been emptied of machinery and carpeted. A unique venue, two of the three floors were located below the waterline, making ours the world’s first truly “underwater” dive show.
Based on the success of the previous year and recently enacted advanced registration and ticket sales, we estimated a crowd of 8,000 individuals. After our pre-show meeting the Queen Mary management dropped a zero in our attendance estimation and instead planned for 800. The venue was horribly short of food and general staffing. But we somehow made it work; even with Kim being seven months pregnant. We kept Queen Mary as our show venue for 10 years.
It was during one of the shows aboard the Queen Mary that I first met Mark Young, now current owner of Scuba Show and California Diving News. Mark was an attendee, not an exhibitor, and an exhibitor complained to me that Mark was selling ads for his own diving magazine. This was a violation of event policy, which states that no one other than authorized exhibitors can conduct business at the event. I approached Mark and told him he’d need to leave. He refused, insisting he was attending the show the same as any other attendee and had not been soliciting. He walked away. I stood, flabbergasted. Though shocked, I admired his steadfastness. Since then, we’ve become great friends.
By 1999 we were busting at the seams. Attendance had swelled and our growing pains forced a move.
In 2000 we expanded to the Long Beach Convention Center just across the bay. The show immediately grew 129 percent and filled quickly. A few years later, moving to a larger hall in the same facility, the show grew again. We also shifted to a two-day show, Saturday and Sunday.
By now we had made some long-term friends from both the business and general diving public. Socially we noticed that the Scuba Show was a hub of fun and connections. New friends were made, and old buddies reconnected. We even saw some romances and marriages take place because of Scuba Show.
By the time Scuba Show reached the quarter-century mark, our boys were grown and had finished college. They were exploring their own careers. Our personal lives were changing, too. We were increasingly involved in our church ministries. We felt ready to turn CDN and Scuba Show over to a new owner – but only to the right owner. This was our baby, after all.
Along came Mark Young, the guy I had tried to kick out of the show many years before. When I had met him in that awkward situation, he was still early on in publishing Dive Training. He built it to become a very respectable publication that supported the principles of dive education through quality professional dive centers – the same as our company. His reputation in the diving industry was impeccable.
Oddly enough, I don’t remember haggling over price and terms. Most of our discussions were more like interviews, with me asking, “Are you right for my baby? And him, “Is this something I want to adopt?” Kim and I got the comfortable feeling that Mark was going to take the show and magazine to the next level.
Although we were not contractually required to do so, we stayed on the first few years to help them get going. During this time, we got to know Mark’s wife Ginny and fell in love with her immediately. Mark and Ginny are doing a great job. We now happily “volunteer” every year, as do many of our family members and friends from previous years.
And we are glad to still be included as part of the show as seminar speakers, sometimes consultants, and staffing. It is always fun working with great friends and looking forward to seeing old diving friends, making new ones, seeing the new gear, and gathering new ideas and booking travels for the coming year.
Becoming Part of the Family
By CDN Owners Mark and Ginny Young
It was 2012. I was already twenty years in the diving business publishing Dive Training magazine and the industry’s trade journal, and Ginny and I had just become the new owners of Scuba Show. As Dale mentioned above, he and Kim weren’t obligated to stick around and show us the ropes, but they graciously volunteered to help that first year, and have been there with us every year since. In fact, most of their longtime volunteers who’d been with them since they started the show are still volunteering with us today. And what fine people. We’ve also brought friends from Missouri to help out, and hang out, and everybody has a great time putting on the show.
Ginny and I are still very proud to be continuing Kim and Dale’s legacy. Yes, we bought their business, but somehow it feels more like they adopted us into their family. Instead of Dale succeeding at kicking me out of Scuba Show all those years ago, we’ve succeeded at building a lasting friendship. And we’ve been proud to have our own kids involved, too — just like Dale and Kim’s sons. Our daughter Tracy works as Executive Producer, and her husband Scott helps with tech support. Our son Eric and his wife Giselle attend and help in a variety of ways.
But the most interesting thing about the show that I have observed and realized over the years, and I have editorialized this a few times, is how the event has always been so much more than time and place, and exhibitors and attendees. The entire diving community revolves around our fascination and connection with aquatic environments — the love of the oceans, and marine life, and being underwater with all of it. It is our individually intimate connections to that other world that binds the room; the people all around you, no matter which side of the table they are on, this is the assembling of shared passion.
What a great thing to host. Thank you for the opportunity.
