Having just competed in a regional NAR competion this last weekend, some observations.
There were virtually no new competitors since last year. There seem to be a (very small) number of folks who like to compete, mostly adult males over the age of 35.
There were no kids who wanted to compete who brought their parents, but there were a number of competitors who brought their kids (who competed). In other words the only kids competing were there because their folks compete.
The barrier for entry, to have any chance to win, is very high. The truly competitive show up with tower launchers and pistons. I've been trying, without success, to buy a tower launcher for over a year. The number of folks who are going to be interested in building competitive models as well as all their launch equipment, is very small. Hence folks may show up once, but unless they are really really into it, will quickly realize they have little reason to enter since they have almost no chance of being competitive.
The altitude events require a lot of equipment and time from volunteers to track flights. Even using Contest Manager, reduction of data takes quite a bit of effort. The duration events are orders of magnitude easier to judge.
The judging of scale events is incredibly subjective and depend as much upon who is doing the judging and their interpretation of the rules as it does upon the models involved. "Mission Points" add another whole level of subjectivity way confusing to anyone new. You can read the NAR Pink Book all you want and it will give little real guidance as to what it takes to be competitive in Scale events.
So if I was interested in starting up some rocketry competitions with the idea of attracting folks this is what I would do.
Focus the initial competions on kids, not hypercompetitive adults. Unfortunately the NAR today is way competition focused and even though they have kid divisions pretty much the only kids who compete are kids of adult competitors.
Do spot landing and duration events (egglofters, helicopters, gliders, streamers, and parachutes). They are easy to judge and the criteria are objective.
Make every launch use the club's equipment so that everybody competes based on the quality of the models they build, not the quality of their launch equipment. if you want to add that stuff later, go for it.
Just some random thoughts after this last weekend's competition.