Large Scale Central

Boomer's Theory On How To Host A Sucessful Open House

General Discussion
#1

Mid summer and we are all preparing for the fall open house season. Here are my three simple rules for insuring a good time is had by all.

#1 Trains must be running.

This sounds like a no-brainer but it is often viewed as “lots of trains must be running to perfection”. Trying to achieve perfection for our public display adds a lot of stress and quickly leaches the fun out of the event for the host. Relax and accept that whether you have been working on your layout for many years or just a few months it is not finished last year and will not be finished this year. People are looking at your entire layout not just the train. They are going to enjoy the overall beauty and be unaware of your unfinished track-side industries or crab grass problem in the back corner. Remember that a GR is always a work in progress.

Do the basics and make sure the layout is clean. Pull the weeds, sweep the ballast, brush the dirt and debris from your buildings. Having things neat and orderly will contribute to the overall impression. It does not have to be fancy.

Check your trains and track the day before. They will run like a Rolex all day. Accept that they they will not do so the day of your open house. This is because the universe hates garden railroaders. All is not lost though. You can stick it to the universe by having a second or even third engine ready to go. It is also a good idea to have your sidings and stubs filled with rolling stock. This creates points of interest for your guests and lets you show off your collection or some special projects you have completed.

My first open house consisted of #5 (an 0-6-0) pulling five side dump ore cars around the mine loop. It was the first part of the layout I built and at the time had only 48 ft of track. Never the less it ran great for hours. The second year I had completed the mainline just one week before the open house date. I ran my first RC/Bat engine, #34, for all of three loops before it quit. I did not know it at the time but I had not snapped the wiring connector fully into place. After a few laps it worked out just enough to loose contact. Fortunately I had invited other club members to bring their engines and run them. Live steam and a painted lady from Placitas ruled the main while #5 once again circled the mine loop like a metronome. I still invite friends to run at my open-house as I find it fun to run trains with other people rather than for other people. I took a lot of ribbing for #34’s failing but I got my revenge a few years later when My buddy Bill Beck fitted it with titanium gears and shoehorned in a Pittman 24 volt motor. Most of the NMGR members are wise to the truth now but in the beginning I would respond to their statements: “That’s a Bachmann Connie, I didn’t know they could pull like that?” with “Oh you didn’t go spend your money on an Accucraft because of all the propaganda about broken gears and a tiny motor did you?” Hehhehhe…Boomer is evil and you are all here for my entertainment.

#2 Food.

Coming from a large Irish farm family I learned a long time ago that hospitality is more important than the event. My Grandfather had a sign in the den of his house that read. “Our house is so blessed that nobody leaves here hungry”. The only thing garden railroaders like more than trains, is food. If you have good food and plenty of it then it is impossible for your open house to fail. If you didn’t finish a project then visitors will be happy to hear about your plan and see what work you have accomplished. If the trains don’t run they will be happy to look at your garden. Even if you get rain, hail and lightening strikes, with a full tummy, your guests will still enjoy talking trains and other things.

I prefer BBQ. It is synonymous with summer and there are lots of ways to fix it to suit pretty much any taste. I usually do smoked chicken, pulled pork and brisket. Sometimes I do a few hot dogs and hamburgers for those that want something bland like N scalers and kids. Of course all the fixings are available: baked beans, coleslaw and potato salad. Each year I alternate between deviled eggs and cornbread. I don’t want to spend all day standing over the grill so I smoke the meats several months before and put them in the freezer. Everything else is bought ready made or grilled that morning. The day of the event the meats go in crock pots to keep them hot and the rest is put out at serving time. For fun I bought an iron triangle. We actually ring the dinner bell and call “Come and get it!!!” It’s just like a scene out of “City Slickers” but without horses…or cows…or weird alcoholic cattle punchers.

I have tried different ways of doing drinks. The easiest has been cans and bottles in a tub of ice. I usually let people bring their own alcohol as there are to many tastes to accommodate. This does lead to more than a few cans left sitting with only a sip or two gone so I have tired using the half size cans of soda. We still have partially drank cans left behind but less is wasted. Not sure it matters as they cost as much as the full size cans.

#3 Plan well to de-stress yourself.

If you are running yourself crazy then you will not have fun. If you do not have fun your guests will not have fun. A successful open-house really comes down to good planning, not how fancy the event is. Here are some things that I have learned the hard way.

Paper plates and plastic dinner ware. Yep another no-brainer. I will emphasis that I tried the cheapy paper plates and flimsy sporks. Food wound up on the floor, on the patio and on the guests. Sporks are suited for mashed potatoes at KFC not for hungry BBQ loving trainiacs. At a minimum buy the hard plastic forks and spoons and the sturdy paper plates and avoid the disasters.

Run your most reliable engine even if it is not the best looking. There is seldom time to deal with finicky locomotives so hedge your bets with old faithful and let that brass import 4-10-10-4 sit on the siding to be drooled over. Its all about the motion, even a humble 0-4-0 with three cars will look grand as it winds its way around the marigolds and past the hydrangea (or here in the southwest: the ragweed and cactus).

You are going to put a lot of effort into your event so make sure people will come. Send out a notice at least one month ahead of time and a reminder the week before. Include a good map with clear instructions on how to find your house. Not everybody has a smart phone or understands how to use google earth. Don’t let your guests show up angry and frustrated because they had trouble finding you. Make sure you include a start time and if you care, a stop time. My Irish heritage precludes me asking people to leave, fortunately I am willing to run trains and eat BBQ until the cows come home…and I don’t own any cows.

I am sure others have wisdom to impart so I encourage you all to chime in. At some point we need to discuss proper BBQ technique and potato salad recipes. For now here is wishing that your open house is a roaring success and I hope you all have the chance to come visit us here at the Cibola.

#2

Here is a not up front hidden detail the kids had to come running to show me

#1 When we, (wife and grandkids) go to club open houses, the ones the kids like best are tho ones that have a treasure hunt paper, one I remember had 12 scale swans places all around the layout. Wife saved some of the papers 18 items on a seek and find paper, another had 13 questions like how many guys are climbing the mountain(4) and a tiger escaped from circus , where is he? On the ferris wheel. It gives the kids something to involve them, gets them to look close and in my granddaughters case, on the way home she was telling me what she wanted on my RR.

#2 Please have something that identifies you as the owner or helper, so we will know who to ask. AND PLEASE be available to answer all questions people may have. I have wanted to talk to some guys who are too busy with their friends or with something else and seemed to dislike the intrusion, which makes me want to leave right away. Yes I know you are busy making sure things are working smoothly, but if I wait patiently for a couple of minutes you can put a hold on you bs session to answer my question about your layout.

#2B if you do not want to answer a lot of questions all day, make a flyer to hand out with the general information, size, Batteryor Track power, feet of track, where you store everything , what is the lock code to garage, important facts people would be interested i to find out. Several we went to have included tons of dirt, rock brought in, where rust garden stuff came from.

make sure your walks, foot paths and viewing areas are well marked, one large place had an area that I thought was ok to walk to but found out it was not supposed to be there.

#3 Have fun yourself, if you are stressed it will show and we the visitors will pick up on it. No loud expletive laced dialog with the train that derailed .

#4 say thank you, sometimes when people show up and thank you when some people leave, some people will have unruly kids, and some times an accident will happen, at on place a kid with a hat was looking eye level at a train coming across a bridge and his hat bill accidently hit a car causing it to derail, he apologised instantly to the operator who smiled and told him he had done it too. my thoughts.

#3

Boomer covered it pretty completely but Pete touched on one thing that I am a firm believer in.

Have a qualified person or two to run the trains and keep things moving. That way as the host you

are not “bogged down” in routine and have time to act as a host and answer questions.

We have held many open house and club meets over the years and I learned this at the first one.

As host never try to keep the railroad running let others do that and pay strict attention to your job as host.

Just my opinion.

Rick

#4

#2 Please have something that identifies you as the owner or helper, so we will know who to ask. AND PLEASE be available to answer all questions people may have. I have wanted to talk to some guys who are too busy with their friends or with something else and seemed to dislike the intrusion, which makes me want to leave right away. Yes I know you are busy making sure things are working smoothly, but if I wait patiently for a couple of minutes you can put a hold on you bs session to answer my question about your layout.

That there is the thing I have issue with, with the NMRA division 2 folks. They gather at the train shows to BS with each other, and they dislike the intrusion of a member of the public asking a question. I firmly believe that is why the club president actively recruited me. I can talk to almost anyone, and I do talk to the viewers at the shows.

#5

So I BBQ my brisket about 12 hours with regular charcoal by indirect heat. Place coals all to one side with an aluminum foil pan next to it full of water. Place grills on then place another foil pan full of water over the coals. You want about about 250 degrees.

I use a simple dry rub on my brisket. Course pepper, garlic powder, onion powder, ground coriander, ground cumin, paprika, and red pepper flakes, and course sea salt. Wrap the brisket tight in foil but leave the open side so you can unwrap it latter. Cook it over the bottom pan of water. After an hour or so open up the top of the foil to expose the brisket. I should have mentioned this but get some oak chunks and soak them in water before you start your coals. Now use the soaked oak chunks and throw a few on at a time o. The coals to get a raging smoke going. Smoke hard for two hours. Cover back up and finish cooking.

Well you said we could discuss BBQ techniques later, was this later enough.

#6

David said:

“#2 Please have something that identifies you as the owner or helper, so we will know who to ask. AND PLEASE be available to answer all questions people may have. I have wanted to talk to some guys who are too busy with their friends or with something else and seemed to dislike the intrusion, which makes me want to leave right away. Yes I know you are busy making sure things are working smoothly, but if I wait patiently for a couple of minutes you can put a hold on you bs session to answer my question about your layout.”

As you can see I made sure our visitors new who the Hosts were at our NGRC open house. Both Molly and I wore our convention Orange tee shirts with our Host Badges. Food for our guests was out of the question with over 400 visitors to our layout. Molly greeted every one as they entered our layout. We had 5 pads laid out to sign in so there were no sign in lines. We made a concerted effort to mingle with all who came and to answer their questions. I also made a few flyers explaining what locos we have and how we power and sound the layout, that really helped repetitive questions. I have been to too many open houses where I was ignored by the hosts and did not want our guests to feel ignored. We have received thank you notes some of our guest which we really appreciated.

#7

Dan DeVoto said:

As you can see I made sure our visitors new who the Hosts were at our NGRC open house. Both Molly and I wore our convention Orange tee shirts with our Host Badges. Food for our guests was out of the question with over 400 visitors to our layout. Molly greeted every one as they entered our layout. We had 5 pads laid out to sign in so there were no sign in lines. We made a concerted effort to mingle with all who came and to answer their questions. I also made a few flyers explaining what locos we have and how we power and sound the layout, that really helped repetitive questions. I have been to too many open houses where I was ignored by the hosts and did not want our guests to feel ignored. We have received thank you notes some of our guest which we really appreciated.

Dan’s a cool dude! (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-cool.gif)

#8

Thanks Joe, the checks in the mail!(http://www.largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-money-mouth.gif)

#9

OK Dan. Did I do it like you told me? (http://largescalecentral.com/externals/tinymce/plugins/emoticons/img/smiley-wink.gif)

#10

Good suggestions!

One that is not listed - I may have missed it - what about the restroom! Sure enough, a clearly identified host and hostess will get the request by either an adult or adult with child. Our response is to plan on that happening and give verbal direction to the closest restroom access into the house next to the location we are most frequently at. We don’t have a restroom sign. We then have some idea of when they entered and when they left. There are direction arrows once the person who has asked is in the house. Simply an arrow or two does it. There are hand towels, etc., at the ready in the bathroom. We had a friend indicate that a “restroom sign” gives an OK for people to simply go inside and look around out of curiosity.

Question: I have heard stories - not having spoken to a victim myself - of theft occurring at an open house. The thief was not identified as either a RR enthusiast responding to invitation or just someone off the street who saw the identity signs on the house front.

Any experiences that point to any needed security tips?