Sounds like a great event and a great chance to educate people!!! I'm involved with an event every March that's held in Conroe, Texas, called the East Texas Woods and Wildlife Festival (or something like that...seems they change the name every few years). It has lots of outdoor-oriented booths, and lots of activities for kids. I work for the US Forest Service (I'm a wildlife biologist) and we have a booth there to provide info about the National Forest. I bring a number of my native Texas snakes for display, including several local venomous, and also bring my big gentle gopher snake for people to handle.
The snakes are a magnate for people, and the kids LOVE the gopher snake! Even kids who start out terrified of him usually come around...I can almost always sweet talk them into reaching out with a finger to touch his tail. Once they've done that, they are emboldened and will start stroking him more. It's so cool to see a 4 or 5 year old child go from being afraid of him to holding him entirely. And then later bringing their friends by our booth to meet him.
He's probably the most photographed snake in the state of Texas, since all the parents are wildlife snapping pics of their kids with him. LOL Events like these can go a long way toward educating people about snakes. I'm always thrilled when I hear about others doing what you're doing. Keep up the good work!
We also converted a family to snake owners this past December. Our farrier (horse shoer) was out doing our 12 horses in mid-Dec and he and I were talking about my snakes. He mentioned that his wife had been bugging him for the past 6 months about wanting a pet snake, and he was thinking about getting her one for Christmas...he asked what was a good kind to get and where to get it. I told him the usual corn or king snake. But then I said if he was serious, that we had a 4 ft. striped California kingsnake that a friend had given us a couple of years ago that we'd been looking for a home for, and that he was welcome to have her. I gave him a list of what he'd need for a set-up, husbandry tips, dos and don'ts, and we agreed to meet a couple days before Christmas to hand off the snake. He bought the tank and supplies, we gave him the snake a few days before Christmas, and his wife and two sons (ages 2 and 4) were thrilled to death with "Lucy" as they named her.
We also gave him a bag of frozen mice and told him to let us know when he runs out and we'll give him more. We see him every 6 weeks when he comes to trim and shoe the horses so get regular updates. The only problems they've had is reminding the two boys that they need to not handle Lucy for a few days after she's eaten. They play with her constantly and are the hit with their friends. I'd say we've successfully converted a family (and their friends) to snake ownership!