The Future of this hobby.....

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The first is a place to fly them legally. When I was a kid we simply went to any large park and flew. This was pretty much our weekend thing. If it wasn't raining we were flying. Once in a while we would get a park ranger ask us to leave but that was it. Now it is illegal to fly in most parks

I would not assume that to be universally true.
Call around your local area, and find out for yourself!

I called a few local towns in NJ years ago, and none had any objections to launching.
That was way before fireworks became legal in NJ.
If your state and town are OK with people setting off fireworks, chances are they will welcome rocket launches without batting an eyelash!

The last time I launched in a city park, everyone gathered around and watched the launch and cheered :)
Some folks enquired about the hobby :)

Same here.
Have been launching off soccer, baseball, and HS football fields ever since my oldest brought a RTF rocket from a summer camp, and asked "what do I do with this"?
We always attract a crowd of other kids and families when we launch.

Then there are the Cub Scout launch days, also at local parks. Kids and parents go nuts for those.
We have another one coming up in a few weeks.

I've seen other families launching on their own as well, though "attracting a crowd" is less welcome under the present circumstances.
 
Kids don't do catalogs. Dids do YouTube, TikTok, Reddit, Snapchat, etc. When my daughter saw DudePerfect! do a rocketry episode, she couldn't wait to come running and show me. I leave my Sport Rocketry magazines all over the house and I doubt she knows there are pages on the inside. Does the NAR have a different magazine for junior members?

I've been kicking around the idea of doing a rocketry themed YouTube channel focusing on reviews, getting started, all that stuff. The problem is that I'm a bit over-committed to my over-sized list of hobbies.

This. Put this in huge font and bold it.

KIDS DON'T CARE ABOUT CATALOGUES.

If you want to get more kids interested, you have to get them involved in the places they go. That can be the clubs and organizations they're involved in, or for many kids, the media they consume.

Some kids do. My daughter did a rocket camp at school for a week one summer when she was 8 and we started flying rockets. Somewhere on the way we got an Estes catalog, and my daughter went through and checked all the models she wanted to buy. So when Estes had a sale we bought several of these kits, including the Firehawk, the Flutter-By, the Hornet, and the Partizon:
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Some kids do. My daughter did a rocket camp at school for a week one summer when she was 8 and we started flying rockets. Somewhere on the way we got an Estes catalog, and my daughter went through and checked all the models she wanted to buy. So when Estes had a sale we bought several of these kits, including the Firehawk, the Flutter-By, the Hornet, and the Partizon:

Cute picture, and story, but keep in mind that your kid was *already* interested in rocketry when she got the catalogue. Catalogues aren't what get kids interested.
 
The future of this hobby will not be affected by who sells high-power kits the cheapest. The future is not in who sells motors for least expensive. Most importantly, J+ flights are not what will keep this hobby alive. There are 10X the needed vendors for the number of people associated with this hobby, that has become clear. The future of this hobby depends on you giving a kid a $10 Estes or Quest kit to get them hooked, so they then do so for others. The average age in this hobby has gone way up - that is not good, Estes/Quest needs to re-focus on schools & first time flyers.

I remember as a kid in school getting an Estes Catalog once a year, and it was like Christmas. Estes & Quest both now only give lip service to this market. 25% of sales should be put towards attracting the new, young market - they grow into the older mature market.

There are two other reasons why newbies don't get involved as well, let's see if you can guess them

I’m a data driven person. NAR reported 7,400 members and approximately 195 affiliated clubs. Both are all time highs for the organization. Five years ago, those numbers were 20% less. I see no evidence of the hobby declining. May have seemed that way this year because narcon, ldrs, and other big draw events were canceled.
I see Estes now in the hands of real enthusiasts, a reinvigorated aerotech pushing on both ends of the spectrum (new O motors, and new quest A/B/C motors). Heck, even rocksim had a major version this year, 11 years after the last release.
 
I grew up on a farm as a kid. We went out and launched whenever we wanted to (when the crops weren't too high). Those were the days. Can't do that in my suburb - not allowed - even though we have a couple of parks that would be great for LPR. The clubs in Chicago Metro all have flying fields that are a bit of a hike to get to and then only once a month, at best, weather permitting. Fox Valley is way far north. NIRA is at a forest preserve and is a pretty small field (35 acres). Prairie States low/mid field is 20 miles SW of Aurora . Their HPR field is almost to DeKalb. Michiana probably has the best HPR field - in SW Michigan - and then only in winter months. Bong is a hike to WI - and pretty wet. Flying around here is a challenge...
 
They are one way to get them interested ,but how do you get them in front of the kids and is the best way to spend your limited advertising dollars?
That’s a good question, Tim. Where do kids spend their time when not at school? Where would your ad be seen by the greatest number of people who might be interested?
How expensive are YouTube or Facebook ads?
The decline of the small town hobby shop has almost certainly made it less apt that kids will pick up a catalog from a stack like we used to, but advertisements that lead to kids clicking here for a free catalog could lead to increased interest.
It might be worth noting that Estes has run out of printed copies of their 2020 catalogs. What that indicates I’m not sure. Hopefully thousands of young impressionable minds are going through them like we used to do.
 
Where do kids spend their time when not at school?

Easy answer - YouTube, TikTok, Instagram.
This summer, it has been in the exact order above. The year prior Instagram would have been first. Next year, it will change yet again.

Common denominator: short-attention-span sized chunks of video content.

Where would your ad be seen by the greatest number of people who might be interested?How expensive are YouTube or Facebook ads?

Facebook is for old people, which may very well be the target audience for HP kits.
YouTube rates run around $0.01 – $0.03 per view. More info here: https://www.youtube.com/ads/pricing/
Getting your add in front of the right eye balls in the tricky part.

I would actually pay real money and see either Tim or Gary R do TikTok jingles and dance-off ads!

It might be worth noting that Estes has run out of printed copies of their 2020 catalogs. What that indicates I’m not sure. Hopefully thousands of young impressionable minds are going through them like we used to do.

Estes started to include printed catalogs in boxes with direct mail orders, as of last Xmas timeframe. My guess is they were clearing out the inventory of printed paper copies.
As far as my (elementary school age) kids go, you would have to pay them serious money to make them read anything on paper.
Reading printed materials == homework. Fun stuff is online.
If it's not online, it doesn't exist, or doesn't appeal to them.

For the older folks, it is frequently the other way around.
One can make a living selling to both target audiences, though with distinctly different product lines and marketing campaigns.
 
Out here in California good luck in finding a place to launch....most of the clubs can not meet as of COVID and there isn’t many approved launch sites anyway...the state is on fire so good luck on flying anything with approval from any fire marshal or rep...maybe the desert?
 
Out here in California good luck in finding a place to launch....most of the clubs can not meet as of COVID and there isn’t many approved launch sites anyway...the state is on fire so good luck on flying anything with approval from any fire marshal or rep...maybe the desert?
I thought Tim said that Apogee was in California but looks like they're in Colorado now. Maybe I heard him wrong...

I received an estes order a week or so ago with a printed catalog.
I've thrown away about 6 catalogs from Estes orders so far this year. Should I be saving them to donate to schools?
 
I grew up on a farm as a kid. We went out and launched whenever we wanted to (when the crops weren't too high). Those were the days. Can't do that in my suburb - not allowed - even though we have a couple of parks that would be great for LPR. The clubs in Chicago Metro all have flying fields that are a bit of a hike to get to and then only once a month, at best, weather permitting. Fox Valley is way far north. NIRA is at a forest preserve and is a pretty small field (35 acres). Prairie States low/mid field is 20 miles SW of Aurora . Their HPR field is almost to DeKalb. Michiana probably has the best HPR field - in SW Michigan - and then only in winter months. Bong is a hike to WI - and pretty wet. Flying around here is a challenge...
I thought Tim said that Apogee was in California but looks like they're in Colorado now. Maybe I heard him wrong...


I've thrown away about 6 catalogs from Estes orders so far this year. Should I be saving them to donate to schools?
That is a good idea giving them to schools .I have about 5 of them so far. Good idea. 👍 🚀
 
I thought Tim said that Apogee was in California but looks like they're in Colorado now. Maybe I heard him wrong...


I've thrown away about 6 catalogs from Estes orders so far this year. Should I be saving them to donate to schools?
I don’t think Apogee has ever been based anywhere other than Colorado.
 
I grew up on a farm as a kid. We went out and launched whenever we wanted to (when the crops weren't too high). Those were the days. Can't do that in my suburb - not allowed - even though we have a couple of parks that would be great for LPR. The clubs in Chicago Metro all have flying fields that are a bit of a hike to get to and then only once a month, at best, weather permitting. Fox Valley is way far north. NIRA is at a forest preserve and is a pretty small field (35 acres). Prairie States low/mid field is 20 miles SW of Aurora . Their HPR field is almost to DeKalb. Michiana probably has the best HPR field - in SW Michigan - and then only in winter months. Bong is a hike to WI - and pretty wet. Flying around here is a challenge...

Around the Pittsburgh area a field is a real problem. PSC and SHARC are both at least an hour-two hours, though they are great people, I seldom have that kind of time unless I know it will be a dead-calm day...perhaps after retirement. But my wife has a cousin in DeKalb! And it's sooooo flat out that way! Rocket road trip!

I made my launch box to be a little zany and entertaining for the younger set. And one of my granddaughters (6 years old) seems to have "The Knack" - so there is hope. At my first BAR launch, she was holding her hands pointed up over her head as my Redstone launched - she was a rocket! Then she ran over to where it landed and laid down beside it with her hands still up over her head. Then the other day, she was taking little hot wheels type cars and rolling them down her little brother's spiral ramp. Which wouldn't be unusual... except she was then chalk marking how far each one rolled after it left the ramp... sounds like "the knack" to me...

I do have great hope for the hobby - the new technology is great and there is a lot of "imagineering" going on out there. We just have to do the marketing correctly!
 
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