I wanted to give everyone some of the highlights from the Huntsville Hamfest:

The event was well attended.
Both attendees and exhibitors were respectful of each other re: masks.
On Friday night, we held a pizza reception for the YouTube Content Creators group which was well attended and went extremely well.
The booth was in an excellent location, next to Icom, at the entrance to the hall.
There was an enormous open area in front of the booth for us to wander away from the tables to engage with members while keeping socially distant.
The mood at the booth was universally positive. Members with ideas, but no real complaints about anything that I heard.
Rick and I were able to meet with one of the largest donors – ever – to ARRL. The discussion was brief, extremely positive, and he has committed to re-engage as a major donor.
The Members Forum was not well attended but went extremely well. The only questions asked were re: ARES Connect and status on HOA legislation.
The membership revenue at the booth was below expectation, but given the unknown surrounding how many people might come, was quite good.
There was a better mix of memberships from new members vs renewals over prior shows.

On a personal note, now with this as only my 2^nd in-person event, I struggle with how lightly attended the ARRL Forums have been. We need to create more excitement to get people into the sessions. I have heard from them how excited they are after having attended the Forum, but with such a small audience, we’re missing the opportunity to get more people energized about ARRL.

Any suggestions you have that could improve Forum attendance would be most welcome. I suspect it has everything to do with marketing in advance, and the title and messaging surrounding the session.

On a personal note, it was great working with Mickey at the YouTube event and at the Forum. There’s just so much more energy and team dynamics felt at an in-person event over a Zoom call.

David