Or a non-immersive starting adventure as a hook with just enough Gloranthan spice* to get them interested? Culture and history are all well and good but my experience when running demo games for various companies (L5R, 7th Sea, In Nomine, Mage, Ars Magica, etc) has been to avoid overwhelming the newcomers but to get them interested enough to look it up on their own.
It is often a good idea to bring some stuff to show or hand out afterwards - or make sure that the store has it for sale and recommend something useful that, hopefully, is in stock. If it isn't, discuss the merits of what is at hand.
I'll see if I can dig up my short script and demo-guide that was used as the demo-packet for 7th Sea but the old HeroQuest quick start "Rumble at the Tin Inn (aka "Who wants to Pay More Taxes?") was based on it heavily.
Jeff - AEG Bounty Hunter, SGJ MiB, White Wolf Silver Pack, etc
Powered by hypermail