Theme parks have mastered queue lines.
Let's talk about how - a video collaboration with Jan Walsken,
Research Assistant at the Chair of Logistics and Services Management from WHU, Germany.
We’ve all come to expect at least one thing from a visit to a theme park - queues. The idea
of waiting a substantial amount of time to ride your favourite attraction isn’t unfamiliar. You
wouldn’t choose to wait an hour to buy some milk, or actively choose to sit in standstill traffic
for an hour - so why do we decide it’s okay to queue an hour for rides and roller coasters?
If the wait time itself was the only factor involved in people’s enjoyment of a ride, everyone
would hate Disney - their most popular rides consistently have hour-long queues! Fortunately
for Disney however, we don’t hate them. Disney, and many other theme parks across the globe
have become masters at designing queue lines - ones that we all don’t mind waiting within.
In some cases, people are willing to spend three hours queueing for a ride, a ride which could last
as little as a few minutes. So, how do they do it, how do they get everyone to be okay with queues?
Step 1: Queue entrance Step 1 to creating the perfect
queue line is a memorable entrance. Here, first impressions matter. Unsurprisingly,
the most memorable parts of the queuing experience are the beginning and the end.
Before we enter a queue for a ride, a list of questions usually race through our heads:
How long does the queue look? Is the ride worth the wait?
How does this queue compare to other rides in the park?
To help us answer these questions, theme parks usually provide wait-time estimates,
either as a display at the ride’s entrance, or via an app. These estimates are there for a reason,
they actually enhance your overall experience. Firstly, approximate measures of queue times cause
people to rethink their decisions. If you walk up to a ride and see an excessive queue time, you may
feel obliged to turn away. Over time, this limits the length of the queue, keeping wait-times down.
Some parks also employ pessimistic queue times, ones which are longer than the real wait.
Generally, we’d much rather find out that we’ve waited less time to board the ride,
than more time. This almost gives us a sense of achievement, the feeling that you’ve won,
rather than lost out. On top of this, knowing the approximate wait time also mentally prepares us
for the wait. Queuing for an unknown amount of time can feel long, even if it isn’t.
Ultimately, the decision to join the queue comes down to value.
For some rides we’re willing to wait excessive amounts of time, like at Disney, while for other
attractions we wouldn’t want to wait long at all. This generally happens with new rides,
as everyone wants to experience the theme park’s newest roller coaster for example,
and therefore it’s perceived value is higher. This idea of value also works in reverse.
If you’re unfamiliar with the rides at a park, you may unknowingly use queue times
as an indication of how good each ride actually is. A roller coaster with a short queue could
be perceived as having less value, so you’d naturally gravitate towards the busier rides.
A ride’s entrance should help its perceived value. A large, extravagant beginning to the
queue is both memorable and impressive, making the attraction seem better. Many regional american
theme parks use large ride signs to attract guests to the ride’s entrance - the bigger the sign,
the more impressive the ride, at least that’s what they want you to think.
Step 2: The Queue Layout
No one particularly likes queuing, but we don’t mind it as much when the queue is constantly
moving. Theme parks have developed ways to make the queues move quicker, or more importantly,
appear as if they’re moving quicker. Making physical progress towards the end of the queue
makes wait times seem shorter, especially compared to standing still for excessively long periods.
Queues often use corners to make them appear smaller - compare one single straight line to a
line with a few turns - at first glance the latter looks shorter even though it’s the same length.
Another aspect of the queue line at theme parks’ disposal is it’s width. The wider the line,
the less space groups of people take up. To give the perception that the queue is moving faster,
parks can make the line narrower. This seems detrimental, but consider what happens when
a group finishes queuing. The entire line moves forwards more if the queue is narrow,
giving you the feeling that the line is moving quicker.
Though, a balance must be had. We all appreciate personal space, especially when waiting in line,
so this trick isn’t used all of the time. The perception of both time and progress is important.
Well designed queues will remove objects that convey how much time has passed,
such as a TV that loops the same 10 minute video, or a song that restarts every 5 minutes. These
things become repetitive, allowing you to acknowledge how much time has passed.
Not all queues can be designed perfectly however. Theme parks have a finite amount of space for
each ride, space in which the queue line needs to fit. To pack as much queue into as small a space
as possible, some parks use a cattlepen, known as single serpentine lines to queuing experts.
No one really likes cattlepens, for good reasons. They often feature rows upon rows
of adjacent lines, causing you to traverse up and down the line, seemingly endlessly.
These single serpentine lines break two fundamental rules.
One, they remove everyone’s personal space, placing people as close together as possible,
and two, they make it impossible to determine progress. You’re stuck for what feels like
years travelling up and down a small patch of queue line, not really going anywhere. To make
matters worse, emotions within queue lines can be contagious. Unhappy and frustrated guests in
one part of the queue could spread through the line, making the experience worse for everyone.
In queue lines, it’s very easy to become frustrated. We’ve all been waiting in a long queue
and have experienced people shoot to the front in the fast pass lane. It’s not unheard of for some
guests to pay money to reduce their wait time, but seeing them make more progress than us is simply
frustrating. Theme parks can try to hide their fast-track-esque lines from the regular queue,
so guests don’t feel cheated. On many rides this is achieved through a merge-point, a place where
the two lines come together, close to where you board the attraction. Theme parks also aim to have
the smallest number of queue lines possible. To reduce wait times, some rides and roller coasters
feature two loading platforms. Parks often split the main queue at the last possible moment,
allowing one to filter to each platform. If these were two separate queues from the entrance, guests
would constantly be frustrated that the other queue is moving faster - even if it perhaps isn’t.
Step 3: The Queue Design There’s more to queue design than
just the layout however. The best theme parks have learnt that keeping guests stimulated in the queue
provides both a better overall ride experience. Firstly, many rides and roller coasters use
interaction to make the wait more exciting. The queue line might flow next to, above, below,
or around part of the ride’s track. That way, while waiting, you watch the attraction you’ve
queuing up before. You see guests hurtling around the track, screaming their heads off, all of which
builds anticipation and makes you more excited. When it comes to the actual ride, it feels more
exhilarating. Being in the right mental state before experiencing an attraction can improve
your enjoyment of it. Naturally, if the queue line is empty, you might not get a chance to build up
this anticipation, or absorb your surroundings - diminishing aspects of the overall experience.
For many theme parks, considering the overall ride experience is a crucial step
in attraction design. To further involve guests within their rides, the best theme parks often
attach a storyline to their attractions. This story is told through theming and decorations,
placed around the ride area, including the queue line. Having a well decorated ride
is more visually interesting and engaging to guests. Compare Disney’s Star Wars themed land,
Galaxy’s Edge, to a roller coaster built on a flat piece of land - there’s no competition.
Disney theme parks in particular aim to take this one step further by transporting guests into an
alternate world, placing them within the story. Prior to boarding Millennium Falcon Smugglers Run,
a themed ride within Galaxy’s Edge, guests get to board the famous Millennium Falcon ship.
They spend time roaming around the vessel, taking in the details, building anticipation.
Riders then move into the ship’s cockpit, before beginning the actual ride experience. This all
works together to immerse guests within the Star Wars story, making them one of the characters.
Other queue lines use interactive elements to keep guests engaged. Upon its debut,
Disney’s Seven Dwarfs Mine Train ride featured a game guests could play within its queue line.
The game saw visitors sort gems using interactive touch screens accessible from both sides of the
line. Disney hoped this would help occupy guests while they wait to experience the roller coaster.
The concept worked, as intended, but it wasn’t without its flaws. Some guests became too
engrossed within the game and held up the queue, ultimately making others frustrated. As a result,
Disney has since removed this interactive element from the Seven Dwarfs queue line.
To create a completely immersive experience, we need more than just visual stimulation. Many theme
parks around the world, even ones outside of the big names of Disney and Universal,
use themed audio to help draw guests into a ride’s storyline. Music is fantastic for setting
the scene and is quick to influence the mood of guests. Fast paced music can build excitement,
psyching us up for the ride; while slower soundtracks create anticipation,
and perhaps even make you slightly nervous. Likeable music, one which isn’t repetitive,
can actually help to reduce the dissatisfaction of queuing for a ride. To achieve this, parks create
soundtracks with no beginning, middle or end, to keep the music fresh throughout even long waits.
Some theme parks even take it one step further and utilise another one of our senses, smell.
Smell pods can be found in a range of rides and roller coasters around the world,
further helping to transport guests into the world created by the designers of the attraction.
Scent affects our mood subconsciously, and helps to stimulate our senses.
Some rides employ smells of damp air, to create the illusion that the building guests are waiting
inside is old and weathered. Interestingly though, the combination of both music
and scent can be too much for our senses, causing them to be overwhelmed.
Step 4: Dealing with uncertainty One of the worst things about waiting
in a queue line is uncertainty. Being told your flight is delayed, but not being told by how long,
is incredibly frustrating. Similar experiences can happen at theme parks, where rides find themselves
unexpectedly delayed due to technical issues. When this happens, the uncertainty makes the
wait seem even longer. First, you notice that the ride is no longer sending out new trains,
or that the queue isn’t moving anymore. Then, you start to become agitated and thoughts of
“what’s wrong with the ride, is it broken” begin to propagate through the queue. To combat this,
theme parks often attempt to update their guests if an unexpected delay does occur.
Simply explaining why there’s a delay can reduce people's frustration with queuing
significantly. Furthermore, giving an approximate duration for the delay,
even if it’s wildly inaccurate, can also set people’s mind at ease. Ultimately,
we’re all much happier to queue when we’re informed - we just want to know why we’re waiting!
Step 5: End of the line The end of the queue marks the beginning of the
ride. The last few steps of the queue should make you feel excited to ride your chosen attraction.
Rides that achieve this often greet you with expansive and well themed station buildings,
impressing you moments before boarding. Other attractions use pre-shows, short
videos or animatronic audio-visual experiences, to further explain the story of the attraction and
build anticipation. The preshow on Disney’s Tower of Terror is a well known example, where you find
yourself bundled into a themed room, while an old TV sets the scene and further establishes the
ride’s storyline. Other attractions take advantage of ride hardware to create a memorable end to the
queue. Disney’s Rock ‘n’ Roller Coaster features a launch, which propels guests to 92kmh 57mph
at the very beginning of the ride. The final part of the queue sees you walk adjacent to the start
of the launch, forcing you to witness riders shoot off into darkness at high speeds. This is
a fantastic way to quickly build anticipation, and to make the entire experience memorable.
Ultimately, the end of the queue line can define the entire waiting experience.
If the queue becomes slow at the end, guests may perceive the entire wait as being longer
than they had anticipated, reducing satisfaction. Theme parks can cause
the impression that the end of the line is moving faster by making it narrower,
causing you to move forward quicker than before. A quick end to the queue,
matched with an exciting and grand finale, simply makes the wait seem more worthwhile.
Step 6: Boarding
The final step before you get to experience the ride - board the ride vehicle. The quicker you
board the attraction, the sooner you can be sent around the track, allowing more people to board.
Ultimately, theme parks can reduce wait times by increasing the capacity of their
attractions - the more guests that ride every hour, the shorter the queue time - simple. As
a result, parks will do anything to improve the speed at which you board the ride.
One method they use is to make sure you know how to board the ride before you actually
have to board the ride. Some parks use in-queue videos
that explain the boarding process, to reduce problems when the time occurs.
These videos are often found on rides with quirky ride vehicles, such as Hagrid’s
Magical Creature Motorbike Adventure at Universal Studios Islands of Adventure.
However, it’s not just guests boarding that can slow things down, but also passengers
leaving the ride vehicles. For you to board, the other guests must first leave. As a result,
theme parks often open the air gates, the gates blocking guests from boarding,
before riders have left the vehicles. This causes those waiting to naturally ‘push’
passengers out of their seats quicker than normal. This action is exaggerated by narrow
air gates - the small space is not somewhere you want to be for long. The entire boarding process
is also sped up by having guests board and disembark from the ride on different
sides of the station. This ensures the ride’s platform doesn’t become overwhelmed with guests,
all trying to do different things. Some attractions get rid of this process altogether
by utilising separate loading and unloading platforms. Passengers who’ve just experienced
the ride exit at a separate part of the station, meaning an empty vehicle is presented when you go
to board. This reduces loading times, improves the ride’s capacity and brings down wait times.
No matter what methods theme parks employ however, guests frustrated
with their wait can sometimes board slower than normal - ruining the entire system.
Conclusion
Theme parks have come a long way since their inception. The queue used to be an annoyance,
something inevitable before you get to experience a ride. However, parks have begun to change the
way we look at queue lines. Interactive elements, highly themed details, music, preshows and a whole
host of other things have helped to integrate the queue into the overall experience. For guests
to be entirely impressed by a ride, they must first be impressed by the queue line.
Next time you visit a theme park, take note of the measures they employ to keep
you happy while waiting. Does the queue feature music? Did you wait less time than estimated?
Could you see any other, alternate queues nearby? Soon, you’ll quickly be able to spot a bad queue,
ones with tight cattlepens and repetitive televisions. What’s worse than a bad
queue? Knowing you have to queue in a bad queue. Perhaps theme parks will abolish
queue lines altogether - instead implementing virtual waits. We’d love to hear your thoughts
on queue lines in the comments below. Thank you for watching, and, we’ll see you all next time.