Was flying whoops at the playground and caught the eye of the local grounds-keeper who watched me fly the play sets, swings, and slides for a while. He came over and was very excited and asked a bunch of questions, and said to go ahead and fly around them, and then went back to work with his coworker. I could hear him telling the coworker everything he had learned, and the two of them were loudly talking about how cool it was, how they had seen 'drones' before, but never something like this. The one guy hollers 'He's like a gosh darn bird!'
When I left, they were both waving enthusiastically.
These aren't the spooky privacy invading, easy to fly, camera drones that people find creepy. These things are the magic of flight, and people can tell the difference.
It's like a gosh darn bird.

Excellent. We need more of those types of interactions with folks.

Do you also feel the urge to show off a little when you know people are watching? I get that, but then I screw up and crash for the same exact reason.

I definitely pushed myself a little harder knowing there was an audience!
The key is, when you do crash, to look real calm about it like it was all part of the show