It depends.

Some years ago, I went to a hamfest/convention, and there were some ARRL
bigwigs in the room. Must have been the early 90s.

There had been suggestions that amateur radio didn't have the general
exposure it should have had. There are huge county fairs, state fairs,
and how often do you see amateur radio shown and demonstrated there?

Indeed, the Smithsonian Institution had a station = NN3SI, that was on
public display and in daily operation, and it disappeared!!!

So finally one of the senior citizens running the event said "We put up an
amateur station at (a major fair)".

I'm thinking --- GREAT!

"And we held demonstrations for the youngsters - like the 4-H group."

GREAT AGAIN!

"And we had a message fair!"

Groan.

The ARRL guy reads some text from a parent to his kid at home "and if you
don't do your homework, you're grounded.", grasping a wrinkled
"radiogram".

I asked a question. When I asked it, I thought the guy was gonna die.

"Well, I can understand, that a message fair may be of interest to you,
and may have gotten you interested in this. But in this day of cheap
long-distance and international telephone calling, and now we're in the
cellular age, and online computer chatting, do you really think this is
going to turn kids' heads? I mean, a MESSAGE FAIR???"

He didn't know how to answer. He stumbled. Then he said , "well we
weren't really trying to convince the kids to join up" or something like
that.

A noted media personality was in the audience and suggested that ham radio
be tied into technologies that kids understand -- like, for instance,
satellite tracking and communication. Show the horizon tracking and when
the satellite gets to this point here, you're gonna hear voices on the
radio. Fuse computer technology with ham radio technology and you'll turn
the kids heads.

How do you attract the new folks? Kids, adults, whatever?

Forget about what turned you on to amateur radio 20, 30, 50 , 60 years ago.
Try to think of something that will turn the kids' heads today, if you can.

Morse code won't do it. Neither will 2 meter hand helds, not in the era
of cellular technology. Packet? Who needs it, we got e-mail.

Experimentation? Maybe! SOMETHING ... I'm surprised amateur television
hasn't jumped up. ATV via balloon? Satellite signals? But clear your
head of message fairs, or technology that got you buzzed in 1955.

Don't blame the audience if they're not interested in code. Don't blame
society. They want to know -- what FUN can they have?