Did You Ever Have an Open House to Show Off Your Layout?


Greg@mnrr

Greg@mnrr

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Quick question....since many of our layouts are hidden in our basements or out buildings, many of our neighbors and friend never realize how serious we are about our model railroading hobby. I was thinking about havng an Open House for my friends and neighbors late in the year near the Holdisays to"show off" my some what secret hobby.

Questions for the Forum....

Have you ever had a an Open House?
Was it successful and how many people showed up?
How long did the open house last?
Did you serve refreshments?
How long did the guests stay?
Did you have any help operating the layout during the Open House?
How did you do the invitation....by telephone calls or by mail?

Just and idea right now, but definitely a possibility. o_O

Thanks.

Greg
 
I had been doing open house sessions for the club I am a member of until two guys showed up and announced their marriage.
Won't do that anymore. Only visits by invite from now on.
 
Greg@mnrr said:
I was thinking about havng an Open House for my friends and neighbors late in the year near the Holdisays to"show off"
Click to expand...
This isn't quite what you are talking about but every two years our town has an "old fashion" Christmas open house (or open town so to speak) where everyone displays their decorations. We display our "Christmas Forest" which is of course complete with trains under the trees and last year we set up the modular layout in a 10x24 configuration. We got about 150 people through, but it is funny how many people don't want to sign a guest book ??!? I don't have a photo of the layout handy, but below is the western edge of the forest of 2015.

We were open from 5:00 until 9:00.

We served refreshments for the first few times but then realized that put us in competition with the fire department who was serving hot coco and another group selling cookies for some charity. You would not have that problem.

Some guests came in. Looked for a second and left, others hung around for an hour or so.

Yes I definitely had help, but then with the forest we were wrangling 11 trains, on separate tracks. I have helped "run the trains" for other people's open houses. You will want to be talking to the guests not wrangling the trains.

We didn't have invitation issues, the city invited everyone.

IMG_5454.jpg
 
Greg@mnrr said:
Quick question....since many of our layouts are hidden in our basements or out buildings, many of our neighbors and friend never realize how serious we are about our model railroading hobby. I was thinking about havng an Open House for my friends and neighbors late in the year near the Holdisays to"show off" my some what secret hobby.

Questions for the Forum....

Have you ever had a an Open House?
Was it successful and how many people showed up?
How long did the open house last?
Did you serve refreshments?
How long did the guests stay?
Did you have any help operating the layout during the Open House?
How did you do the invitation....by telephone calls or by mail?

Just and idea right now, but definitely a possibility. o_O

Thanks.

Greg
Click to expand...
Greg,

This is a great topic and something that I have never considered. Your right when you say the majority of us are probably "closet model railroaders" and very few people see what we do. Opening our hobby up to our friends, relatives and even strangers to a point, is a good idea and just might create interest.

I would certainly consider the idea but might have a "get together" for people and then show them/introduce them to the hobby and show them what was involved in it. Perhaps a little deceptive but you would probably get more people to turn up if it wasn't "advertised" as a Model Railroad Open House as such. I think people NOT involved with hobby might still see it as boring and something that only "boring old men with nothing better to do" get involved with.

Make it a party and serve up everything you'd serve up at a party. You never know, you might get people interested enough to start their own layouts!
 
- Have you ever had a an Open House?
Yes. Several over the years

- Was it successful and how many people showed up?
25 to 30 each time

- How long did the open house last?
One day

- Did you serve refreshments?
No

- How long did the guests stay?
Various times. Some only a few minutes while others for abut an hour

- Did you have any help operating the layout during the Open House?
No

- How did you do the invitation....by telephone calls or by mail?
By email and once by invitation at church

Nuf said...
 
My answer is no. There aren't many modelers in the area. I have run the trains for visitors not into model railroading but who wanted to see the layout. I have had model railroaders visit from out of state and we have operated my layout but nothing that would be considered an Open House.
 
Greg@mnrr said:
Have you ever had a an Open House?
Click to expand...
Yes, in conjunction with a NMRA convention or an operating weekend. Visitors were limited to the members or participants, not the general public.

Was it successful and how many people showed up?
Click to expand...

Yes in that people liked the layout, no, in that because it was a small group and I lived at the "edge" of the layouts with relatively few around me, only a handful of people visited.

How long did the open house last?
Did you serve refreshments?
How long did the guests stay?
Did you have any help operating the layout during the Open House?
Click to expand...

About 3 hrs, no refreshments, and about 15-30 min.
 
Our club did last year every Sat/Sun evening between Thanksgiving & Christmas(picked up a few new members). This year, the plan is to just have it Thanksgiving weekend & the weekend before Christmas(due to rising heating cost).
Hours: 4-9 both nights
Refreshments, yes
About 15-45 minutes
We had enough members there to run our triple main club layout, as well as some smaller member-owned layouts(including one(built by the father of two senior members) that is 80 years old).
 
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