In this quantitative study, we explored learners' intrinsic motivation towards three different experimental physics educational activities offered by our department to upper-grade high school students. The inspected activities were lecture demonstrations, a science show, and hands-on practical work. The respondents were Czech high school students (N = 9647) who participated in these activities. From each of these activities, a highly comparable subset of 1128 respondents was selected for the comparative analysis. To assess their intrinsic motivation and its covariates, we used three dimensions of the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory: "interest/enjoyment," "effort/importance," and "value/usefulness." The data were evaluated using a unidimensional IRT Graded Response model. Our study revealed that the science show was more appealing to high school students than traditional lecture demonstrations and, surprisingly, even more appealing than practical lab work. This increased interest was more pronounced among students who identified themselves as less diligent in physics. Paradoxically, the respondents perceived the science show as less useful than the other two activities. Delving deeper, gender differences in perceived intrinsic motivation were generally minor, with one exception: in a comparison of the interest generated by the science show and practical work, girls favored the science show more than boys did. These findings underscore the need for a nuanced understanding of pedagogical strategies and offer insights into different approaches to promoting student engagement and interest in physics. Our research could assist educators in distinguishing the activities that might be more beneficial in terms of generating interest among particular groups of students.