The public included many children and their parents. It goes without saying, I guess, that the institutes focusing on natural sciences were way more successful in gaining the attention of young visitors. In the photograph, you can see two 13 ys old boys operating a fake brain.

What about the presentations focusing on humanities?

Some had the great idea of combining children activities with things which could have been more interesting for their parents. For instance, while children were busy looking for fragments of manuscripts in the Playmobile reconstruction of an ancient city and then had to put the pieces of the puzzle together, the parents could read posters or discuss with experts in the same area. Another very cool idea was to give children lego-building blocks to reconstruct archeological models. In another location, children could learn to write in foreign writing systems with ancient writing tools. Their parents could meanwhile use a lens and try to detect the same signs in the reproduction of an ancient scroll

This hands-on approach is, I believe, very promising. If we just offer more to read to the public, there will be no point in coming to such events (since there is enough stuff to read on internet). Rather, we should be able to make people interested by showing, e.g., what it means to work on a manuscript and try to decipher it.

I, for one, noticed that many people would have liked to learn more about blockprint in Tibet —perhaps one could bring a couple of small models and let visitors try them?

One thing which is really a must, is a geographic map. It really helps locating ideas and understanding contacts and influences. In the case of India, current political maps might be misleading, so that one might prefer a geographical one (or a children-friendly one, like the one below, which I found on Pinterest).

Have you ever been to similar events? What works with you as part of the audience? What could one offer?