Lets get right to the point and face the elephant in the room. No one likes waiting in line. The heat and sun. The overcrowding, sometime friendly, sometimes rude surrounding guests. The long waits on your feet. Unless you visit at select sweet spots, waiting an hour or more to ride your favorite roller coaster is not uncommon at a place like Cedar Point.

While waiting in line, guests are a captive audience. You can not get out of line to go to the restroom. You simply follow through the trough passing the time. If you are lucky, you might get a period of time below a shade structure. That is why in 2014 Cedar Fair introduced Fun TV.

With your attention captured, they had hoped to capitalize on the advertising market in between short promotional videos of the roller coasters, games and food highlights.

Ever notice those vending machines while waiting in line? Again, a captive audience waiting in the hot sun may feel the need to capitalize on the over priced drinks.

Beyond that, your time has little benefits to both your day or Cedar Fair’s bottom line.

Sure you could spring for Fast Lane to cut the line, making the company a nice margin. But is there a better solution?

The answer is actually nothing new. Virtual queueing. Parks have been doing it for years. Where it gets interesting is how parks capitalize on it.

If you had the option of virtual queueing for a ride, while you waited you would either be riding something else, or even better to the park’s bottom line, shopping or dining. The less time guests wait in line, the more opportunities parks have at getting you to spend additional money. Yet parks seem to miss out on this opportunity.

So what if we made the case that parks should start implementing more virtual queues? Guests get the benefit of not having to wait in as long of lines. Parks get the added benefit of guests doing other things to pass the time, opening up opportunities for additional income streams.

Thoughts?

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