NMRA British Region Forum

I hope you do get some members out of it. I know a club I belonged to has gained members from a local exhibition.
Getting 300 for an open day is good going.

Many people are only interested in something that stands out.
My logging layout would be three deep, but only if I was unloading logs into the real water ponds, otherwise nothing.
We have helped out with RS Tower at Exeter twice with a large modular layout. The layout was open to visitors in and around it, quite a few visitors would follow trains and operators as the trains worked along the branch lines. I suspect having sound fitted locos helps as well.
Over the decades that I've exhibited layouts, I've noticed you need a really good looking layout for the enthusiasts, but action for the general public.
Anson was another popular layout, here it was the constant movement of long (30') trains, working signals and again sound fitted locos.

Trevor,

Well done. Unless you try you never know and certainly engaging 20 people in conversation out of an attendance of 300 is a good hit rate. Getting 20 visitors engaged at any show is a good rate and the attendance tends to be a lot higher. Can you follow up with ciontact with any post-event? That is what we do in the South East and our conversion rate is quite high - almost 100% at the Ally Pally, about 50% at Brighton Model World.

Best wishes for the future and great to see California Coast running again.

Mike A