Wednesday, February 10, 2016
What Does the Perfect Theme Park Queue Look Like?
www.themeparkinsider.com: One might think that an easy question to answer — "It's empty!" But in practice, an empty queue is an operational disaster. Let's take a look at why, and from that, get a better understanding of why major theme parks are doing what they do with the wait areas for their rides and shows.
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8 comments:
This article may seem mundane to most, but having spent a vast majority of my childhood at disney world, with most of THAT time spent standing in line, it makes me ecstatic that people are dreaming up ways to make lines not as monotonous. The pre-show area that is described in the article seems more common in the rides that are made today or closed and refurbished, such as Test Track at Epcot, which lets you "design" your car for testing before you even get near the ride, which simultaneously keeps you excited and gives you something to do while you spend upwards of 2 hours in line for a five minute ride. It's jarring, then, to go on the rides that are bad examples of what the author talks about, such as Soarin, in which you stand and move a few inches every ten minutes until you reach the ride floor. Talking about pushing people into groups in the load point seems to be something theme parks are catching onto, but won't bother to do for their older rides. From a monetary perspective, this makes sense, but from a rider's perspective, it's not as fun. Step it up, Disney.
I think how theme parks work is very interesting. There is a lot of thought that goes into the small things that people do not really think about. Managing the queues is very important because if those fail then the whole theme park will struggle and people will be very unhappy. In theme parks like Disney they have attractions and things to look at while you are waiting in the queue that are related to the ride. This gives people something interesting to look at while they wait to keep them happy. It is really interesting how a loading area can make so much of a difference in ride efficiency. It makes sense because if you are waiting for people to get on the ride or get their party together it can take a minute or so, but multiplied by the amount of times that happens is a lot of time wasted. Not giving people a choice where to sit and making everyone file in and sit in the next available seat is a very smart idea because waiting for people to sit before starting a show always takes longer than anticipated. That is the reason most shows start late in theatre.
This article did not necessarily go as in depth as I had hoped. I was hoping to read some crazy algorithm for lines based on the number of people in an area or a human tracking system or something really crazy and out there but I have to say this article is somewhat disappointing because it simply laid out some common sense ideas that I think I already knew. I guess I didn’t really realize what Fastpass+ was trying to achieve in terms of numbers. I know the point of Fastpass+ is to allow people to not have to wait in lines for rides, but I didn’t know how they picked a number of people for each fastpass+ slot. I think it would be really cool to talk to the engineers who figure out the ques and Fastpasses at Disney World or other theme parks. I also find it funny how finicky the system is because it is so exact. The system is built so perfectly that if people get distracted by an amusement in line they significantly alter the number of patrons through the ride.
Theme parks are really taking live entertainment to the next level, what started out as a few roller coasters with long lines of black dividers to hold long lines of people has evolved into one of the most complex and innovative experiences available. Themed entertainment is given the unique ability to tell a story to a very small audience in intimate and interactive way. The cost of this is efficiency and in order to create bigger experiences the ability to get people through them efficiently becomes a much larger issue. I love the way that this forces you to consider every single detail of the park. Breaking down the barriers between the experience and the rest of the world can be vitally important not only from an organizational perspective but also from a design perspective where it allows you to fully shape the way someone views even a very short ride.
I always find things like this so fascinating. Of course, on the surface this is totally bland, but I love the idea of being an operations manager for a theme park and really sitting down and thinking about, "How can I get this ride/show/experience to a) run more times per day and b) have more people on it?" So often, I think we label things like operations as "the boring thing that has to be done to make the big thing happen," but it's times like this that I feel so excited for all the ways that management can be made to be creative and exciting. There is also such a cool psychological influence going on here, where those designing the queue entertainment are able to take into account what things will stop guests and what will keep them moving along, as well as what instances cause people to pause or move more quickly, etc. It is truly such a fun and creative process that I imagine would be amazing to be a part of.
i love little sneaky bits about theme parks- especially Disney, hearing about what creative way to make themselves be more efficient and have their audiences have the best time they've come up with next. I have never really thought about why all the queues at Disney have a sort of pre-show or pre-ride area. I assumed it was for people storage and for the viewers aesthetic time. But for them to do it where they have the space and time to organize everyone for max efficiency is so smart. I am going to Disney Land this summer and checking out southern California, and with all the knowledge of gained of the fascinating and secret ways Disney functions, it'll be interesting to go and see them. Especially since 15% of the park is closing down for the new Star Wars renovation, it'll be interesting to see where Disney has amped up efficiency to keep the people in the park in less space happy. I assume they'll do something to move the lines faster, etc, since I doubt they'll lose a lot of sales due to this.
I remember when I was interning in Animal Kingdom at Kilimanjaro Safaris. At Safaris it was well known that the hardest and most essential job to ride efficiency were the pre-loaders. Pre-loaders were the people stationed between the ‘cattle gates’ and the actual queue line. Each safari truck had nine rows of seats, and therefore there were nine lanes of matching ‘cattle gates’. Each set of gate lanes was the equivalent length of the row of seats in the safari truck. There was a visible yellow line painted on the ground just behind the gate lanes to serve as a visual indicator as the capacity limit for that row. Behind that yellow line were four (4) red circles that had numbers corresponding to the gate lanes. As the pre-loader, it was your goal to always have every one of the red circles occupied before the gates were opened and the guests in the lanes were being emptied onto the truck. The most successful pre-loaders were excellent at ‘Human Tetris’ and understanding how to most evenly distribute odd numbered parties across the available spaces to maximize truck capacity. Each of the rows on the truck were structured as benches, and not individual seats, this allowed for a slight fluctuation depending on the size of the guests. (A very real part of this job was gaging the body size of individuals, as well as how comfortable you think they would be riding beside strangers, versus being surrounded by their friends/family. In a typical Disney ride the short ride time would not have much bearing on this aspect, but the Safari is an intimate 21 minute excursion with ride elements and guest focus ranging a full 360°) This very intricate snippet represents only about 10% of the guests wait time in the queue line. This article barely scratches the surface when it comes to how much thought and consideration is given to every part of guests queue experience.
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