What to give visitors to my layout!

One of my good friends has a contest with regard to his layout. He hands out a short questionnaire that asks visitors to find  certain events shown on his layout;

like what is the color of the car in the street accident, what is the name of the bakery; or how many passenger cars are silver?; How may people are in the brick store(s); how may socks are hanging on laundry lines ( like kids know what a laundry line is).

The winner get a cap. Cuts way down on the caps you need.

At my club, I give plastic train whistles to all the children.

We also have a fun sheet that is titled, "Can you find it". It is a list of various things on the layouts.

@DMASSO posted:

At my club, I give plastic whistles to all the children.

Boy, I hope you do that at the end of the visit lol!

The sound of the O layout drowns them out. 😁

Right you are - who can hear anything with 6 trains running in a crowded space? I have used the 'can you find' idea for years, and I give them a page of things to find (or count).  For the young ones it is a challenge because many of my themes are TV or Movie related (Find Odd Job from 007 Goldfinger, the limo from the Godfather; Sanford and Son, the hot chick in the T-bird from American Graffiti etc), but they love counting cows and horses and pick-up trucks and taxi cabs... and they always search hard for the owl and eagle, Batman's cave or the Lost Dutchman mine.  Pure fun - prizes are generally a hot-wheels car, an engineer hat or a choo-choo whistle...whatever I happen to have at the time (or not).   The set up is fluid, things change every year, but the track remains screwed down.

I offer them one (or several) model railroad magazines. I try to keep special ones that have articles or advertising that I want to hang onto, but that leaves hundreds that I can spare. If nothing else it gives them something new to read and it's possible they may even get their start in our hobby with that printed introduction.

TJ

For kids that don't have any trains, I give them a Menard's automobile since I sometimes get them free with train orders. (I cut off the wire for the lights.) For the few times a child stops by who has O-Gauge electric trains, I give them one of my many rolling stock cars.

If you don’t mind Christian messages on some items (some, like the little flashlights, are just locomotives and stars)

https://www.orientaltrading.co...ain?keyword=Railroad

@Becky, Tom & Gabe Morgan posted:

If you don’t mind Christian messages on some items (some, like the little flashlights, are just locomotives and stars)

https://www.orientaltrading.co...ain?keyword=Railroad

Sounds like a great deal on those kids engineer caps!!! 48 caps for $83.49.

I've always given engineer caps to each kid who visits the layout.  I've even received post visit feedback ( and photos ) from parents telling me how much the enjoyed the visit and how the kids like to wear their caps when playing with their Brio or Lionel sets ... the feedback/photos continue to come even years after the visit.  

@RickO posted:

Boy, I hope you do that at the end of the visit lol!

LOL!  When I was still on the road doing broadcasting we did a Yankees game on Bat Day.  Needless to say they didn't heed your advice to hand them out and the end of the game.  Several "incidents" in the stands that day.

@DMASSO posted:

At my club, I give plastic whistles to all the children.

We also have a fun sheet that is titled, "Can you find it". It is a list of various things on the layout.

I'll bet the parents "loved" those whistles .... especially during the car ride back home ... lol!  

Lots of interesting answers here. If it was a club layout I might give the kids a finders guide. There isn’t enough interesting tings to find on my small basement pike, just a few trains running and some old tin buildings. I would never give any sort of test to any kid. Kids today are already over-tested with every form of for-profit standardized testing known to man. Let kids be kids. I got a good chuckle about the plastic whistles. I can just see those kids blowing those whistles all the way home in the car. Oh how those parents must hate you after that. Thanks for the suggestion of the caps but the Christian verbiage definitely would be a major problem with both myself and more-so my wife. I’ll keep on looking. I think for the age most of the visitors to my layout will be, adult sized caps will be appropriate. I’ll keep looking. I have never had a visitor that had 0 gauge trains, or any trains for that matter. Most folks think they are fun to look at but the parents’ reaction is usually “put it out of your mind”.

Cash! (and I'll be at the front of the line)

Tom

I make sets of custom "tickets" that I give visitors upon entry. Before I start up the trains I walk around saying "tickets! tickets please" and use an antique ticket puncher and punch all of their tickets based on the date. I change up the ticket design each year so it is sort of a limited edition souvenir

I agree with Tonka nut.  What else can we do with these piles of magazines that are worth

nothing at the flea markets.  And the little kids seem to like them.

Lew Schneider

I’m with Tonkanut and Lew, I’ve got a stack of train magazines and a stack of catalogs ready for the taking. Most of the catalogs are duplicates of ones I have, or ones I no longer have interest in. My LHS has a stock of 1990 vintage Lionel and MTH catalogs at the door for free also. Kids seem to like the catalogs more than the magazines.

At the Austin Tinplate Trackers holiday layout we give out the little Brachs candy canes and they can do a scavenger hunt to find things in the layout. Like how many German Shepherds can you find in the city (Menards buildings all have the dog.)

We were also given 2 large boxes of paper engineer hats from Lionel and Amtrak several years ago. We also put out old magazines and catalogs for people to take as well.

In 2019 we had well over 20,000 visitors to our layout in a 6 week period from Thanksgiving to New Years. That is a lot of candy canes!

@Power Poynt

I like the tickets and the punching.

I too ask the young guys who visit to hold out their hands and fill them up with prior year magazines.

Mothers have told me in the grocery  that their little Johnny loves looking at the pictures in the magazines and thanks me. Wow!