 Saw You Standing There
Making queues better for both parks and guests
by Keith Miller
AMUSEMENT PARKS ARE MASTERS AT ENTERTAINING GUESTS with thrilling rides and attractions, colorful and engaging shows, and amusing and challenging games; indeed, these delightful experiences are the very reason people go to parks. However, there are places in parks guests don’t always find so enjoyable, but where they spend many hours, and where parks find it difficult to entertain and gratify them: queues.
Depending on the park, guests can spend a large portion of their day just standing in line. Queue management systems can cut down on this wait for some, but the simple fact is, in many parks, waits of an hour or more aren’t uncommon for a two-minute attraction. This time can have a negative impact on guests’  satisfaction with the park experience, especially if they are tired, hot, bored, hungry, or thirsty; it can have a negative impact on parks that aren’t earning any additional per-cap revenue on these guests.
But it doesn’t have to be this way.
Making the Queue More Than a Line
“Parks need to know the fun factor is not just made up of the two-minute attractions—the fun comes in and the [satisfaction] comes in with the value of entertainment they get throughout the day,” says Kim Button, author of “Disney’s Queue Line Survival Guidebook” (www.disneysurvival guide.com).
Button is a former Walt Disney World cast member, and her articles on travel are widely published. Just the fact that a guidebook devoted specifically to queue lines exists and has “survival” as a part of the title is a cue, pardon the pun, to how some guests view the queue experience.
 Button observes park guests start to get “antsy” after about 30 minutes standing in line, and her book suggests many fun activities for guests at such times. But she says there are also things parks can do to make waiting in queues a more satisfying experience: “First and foremost, guests just want to be informed. They want to know how much further they have to walk and to wait, and whether there’s a preshow coming up. It’s great to have a sign saying ‘You’re Halfway There.’”
Button also likes the idea of having informational sign - age about other park venues in queues, such as restaurant menus or calendars of upcoming events. The menus would allow guests to choose where they want to eat and entice them to do so, and the park would benefit from the generated revenue.
Eat, Drink, and Be Merry
 Fans, misters, and shade cover are frequently used and help cool guests when it’s hot, but food and drink offerings in queues are less common. However, Button asserts, “Food and beverage in [queues] is a great consideration. Unfortunately, some parks ask you to get rid of food and drink when you get in line.”
Water fountains are commonly found in queues, and a few parks also have vending machines. The “Volcano” coaster at Kings Dominion in Doswell, Virginia, sometimes has vendors walking through the queues selling drinks. But Liseberg Park in Gothenburg, Sweden, takes this a step further. “In two of our attractions, we have drinking bars—staffed bars—in the [queues],” says Bo Larsson, director of operations for Liseberg. “You can do it if you have the right arrangement and plan for it, and if you have long queues, it’s absolutely possible to do.”
Having seating in queues would certainly be popular with guests, but Will Koch, president and general manager of Holiday World in Santa Claus, Indiana, sees problems: “First, it would increase the square footage necessary for the queue, which would also increase the cost.” It could also have unforeseen effects on the speed the line flows.
Standing Entertainment
Beyond making guests more physically comfortable in queues is the more complex challenge of entertaining them. Extensive and imaginative theming can contribute to guests seeing the queue as part of the attraction experience, as is the case with “Expedition Everest” in Walt Disney World’s Animal Kingdom. The ride’s queue is loaded with authentic artifacts from Asia, as well as an exhibit based on the legend of the Yeti. 
Other queues use video monitors to present pre-shows, often relating to the storyline of the attraction. This not only captivates the guests, but if done right, can contribute to merchandise sales in attraction gift shops. One park, which asked to remain unnamed, is even considering showing live sporting events on their queueing video monitors to keep guests entertained. But more interactive entertainment, such as live characters, prize drawings, or trivia or other games, can truly engross park visitors. Larsson thinks the idea of games is a good one: “Some places have a simple game where you can compete for points. I’ve seen it at the ski lifts in the Alps and it makes the time go a little faster.”
“These are fabulous ideas,” says Button. “Whether it’s trivia questions, live entertainment, or whatever, there are so many ways you can engage guests, and that’s what they’re paying such a large amount of money for.”
Mike Davis, senior vice president with Universal Studios in Osaka, Japan, says his park has experimented with things like putting performers at queues to entertain guests. But he notes it’s important queue enhancements don’t interfere with the flow of the line. “Since the idea of a queue is efficiency— getting people in and out as quickly as possible—it’s important anything a park does won’t disrupt how quickly people get to [the attraction],” he says.
What Else Can We Expect?
For waterparks, the queue situation is a bit different. First, the extremely long waits at attractions are less common, and the setting often makes for a different queue experience from dry-ride parks. “For a big waterpark [attraction], you’re usually going up a tower and the guests get to watch the rest of the park,” notes Tim Gantz, president and co-owner of Noah’s Ark waterpark in Wisconsin Dells, Wisconsin. Regarding vending machines, he says, “If it’s a coin-operated vending machine, the issue is do they have money with them, because many [guests] don’t like carrying it [in their bathing suits].”
As for what we could see in the queues of the future, Larsson suggests they can be built to accommodate more diversions for guests. “You build the queues in a way that they can have live entertainment,” he says, and with the advent of video cell phones and PDAs, he adds, “With the technology [developing] today, it’s an opportunity to show guests in line the things they can do when they come out of the [attraction].”
But Universal's Mike Davis sounds a word of caution about utilizing such technologies: “People have always gone to theme parks and amusement parks to get away from the daily stress of the outside world and have fun. We may be faced with an interesting dilemma in that if we use the cell phones and PDAs in such a way, are we playing into the ‘outside world’? If we [encourage] guests to look at their cell phones and PDAs all the time while they’re at the park, are we going against what we’ve traditionally provided to people—an escape from the outside? With all the technology in our lives, it may be the technological escape that people really savor at parks.” |
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