Classic Disney products like Mickey Mouse, Dole Whip, and spinning teacups, but no way Appearing in a Disneyland commercial? Waiting in line.
From day one, wait has been an important (and for many, frustratingly unforgettable) component of any Visit Disneyland or Walt Disney World. For nearly seventy years, generations of Disney engineers, experience designers, show writers, and executives have been working to make guest wait times shorter, more entertaining, more interactive, and—in the case of today’s story—more easy to manage.
In the huge balance of guest experience, operations, and per capita consumption, FastPass, FastPass+, Disney Spirit+and Lightning Alley In order to solve Disney's capacity supply and demand dilemma, all parties have taken action. But all in all, Disney's quest for the perfect virtual queue may still be going on, and the journey from standard queue to Genie+ is a wild ride in itself… Today, we're going to delve into the history of waiting and explore how Disney's 21st-century solution creates just as many problems as it solves them.
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Whose line is it?
No one likes to wait in line. And for most Throughout human history, people have not…
The first written record of people waiting in line comes from Scottish historian and essayist Thomas Carlyle's 1837 book French Revolution: History. Carlyle described the citizens of Paris as forming “queue“(French for “tail”) In the bakery, everyone waits for their turn to buy bread – supplies were relatively scarce after the French Revolution:
“If we look at Paris now, one thing is too obvious: the bakeries have their queues, or tails; they have long queues of buyers, so first come, first served.”
In the early 1800s, the concept of a “first come, first served” system was considered a “French quirk.” although we don't exactly Knowing what form the transaction took elsewhere in the world (since it's not something very interesting or important that needs to be kept in written records), it most likely involved potential customers gathering around the vendor, vying for attention, much like you'd see at a modern deli counter or bar.
In the early 1900s, Danish mathematician, statistician and engineer AK Erlang contracted the Copenhagen Telephone Company to study and optimize how switchboard operators route, order and receive telephone calls. Erlang's “queuing theory” attempts to understand how a given call volume is distributed fairly and quickly among employees, helping phone companies accurately allocate people based on predictable traffic patterns.
It turns out there's more to queuing theory than just phone traffic. A century later, the once uniquely French custom of “queuing” has spread. In a 1944 article about British citizens queuing for rations during World War II, author George Orwell wrote that he wondered whether visitors to Britain would be surprised by the British's “willingness to queue.”
But in the postwar Western world, waiting in lines was becoming the norm—a daily experience for millions of people at gas stations, restaurants, public transportation, movie theaters, government offices, grocery stores, retailers, and, of course, amusement parks. When Disneyland opened, they were there— Wire!
line art
When Disneyland opened in 1955, the park's queues consisted of metal posts and ropes arranged in a back-and-forth fence that kept guests outside of Fantasyland's dark rides. By all accounts, they are simple, old-fashioned waiting areas. Those that remain today are charming and innocent throwbacks to the park's medieval origins.
As Disney legend goes, Walt's Aha The moment he had been waiting for arrived in 1960, when he visited Knott's Berry Farm, a historic theme park just a few miles north of Disneyland, to see the new Calico Mine Ride, designed by legendary designer Bud Hurlbut. To board the slow-moving mine car, Bud takes Walter through the ride's tent and along a winding path past fake desert rocks and waterfalls.
It wasn't until he was approaching the station that Walter turned the corner and saw the waiting crowd behind a group of pillars, hidden in the fake desert facade and invisible to passers-by. As the story unfolds, Walter exclaims, “Bud, you old bastard!” Walter loved Hurlbut hides wait times from guests (making them more likely to join the line and hand over their ride tickets), and themed paths give guests more to do than wind their way through a slow-moving rope maze.
Decades later, Harvard Business School professor and author David Maister summarized the rules of queuing quite accurately in his book. The Psychology of Queuingasserting that fundamentally, “People want to get started.” Knott’s Calico Queue does just that, placing visitors – no matter how simple – in an environment that unfolds further during the ride. just be a part of it space Get your guests started and make the wait itself more bearable.
It's no surprise that Walt Disney began launching similarly simple green lines in earnest in the 1960s, after his transformative spark at Knott's. No doubt it was the idea of ”getting people started” that inspired the stately gardens and cemetery paths that wind their way to the porches of haunted houses or the courtyards and fountains outside Pirates of the Caribbean.
first one really However, Disneyland’s immersive queues could be from 1967 Lost legend: An adventure through inner space – one of the last projects to benefit from Walter’s guidance. From that point on, the merge queue Enter Environment becomes the standard for fantasy projects. Coupled with the need for weatherproof waiting spaces at the new Walt Disney World, rides like Pirates of the Caribbean in Florida solidified the concept of embedding queues into decorative spaces.
Throughout the 1970s and 1980s, new attractions like Space Mountain and Big Thunder Mountain adopted the “calico” queue concept, replacing single-row railings with vaguely interesting environments that essentially served as quasi previews of the attractions they led to. This idea – waiting time can At least Become more enjoyable by decorating – and that’s just the beginning…
Don't wait; join in!
As with so many revolutions and reinventions of Disneyland, the reimagining that awaited truly reached its climax in the early 1990s. Under then-CEO Michael Eisner, The era of “movie rides” It's about to happen. The influx of intellectual property has given rise to a generation huge New rides with unprecedented scale and marketability interstellar journey arrive Encounter with aliens; Indiana Jones Adventure arrive Twilight Tower of Terror. Beyond their cinematic scale, these attractions do something brilliant: they become wait Enter part of the attraction.
Meister's other rule queuing mentality discount: “Occupied time feels shorter than free time“. Unlike before, this generation's ambitious attractions aim to make the wait worth it, with vague environment designs, bulk previews and casts Enter Queue experience. This is where guests start to reap the benefits Specific “role” Like being an interstellar traveler or an international visitor, instead of riding one-off rides, you enter primitive world and Myths “in space” Constructed via queue space.
concept interesting even involving Service to guests while they were waiting was revolutionary (and remains the standard today, e.g. Star Wars: Rise of the Resistance, it's not clear where the “cohort” ends and the “attraction” begins).
Big-budget, blockbuster electronic tickets were first introduced at Disneyland throughout the '80s and '90s, ushering in a new era of Imagineering and renewed focus on the parks. But even though Imagineers cleverly designed the queue to not only accommodate the declining crowd, entertain They, trouble is just around the corner…
