Beat the crowds : How to improve your attraction’s operational efficiency

There are six affair you can act to cut queuing at theme parks , and attractions : Â

1. You can distribute guest more evenly between days , hence people visit on quieter days rather of in use ones . Â Â Â
2. You can re-distribute the visitor around the park , travel guests from busier domain to quieter unity . Â Â Â
3. You can spread visitors more evenly through the day , so the park is equally in use from open until near , rather than visitor bunching up in the middle of the day .
4. You can increase the throughputs on each action ( e.g . ride , restaurants etc ) .Â
5. You can lend more activities.Â
6. In the end , you can increase attraction availability , so activity pass more time capable and less time closed.Â

Of grade , every park has a finite budget , and share of the challenge is working out where to prioritize investment .

The extent to which each of these levers will own an impact will vary from park to park and each warrants its own deep dive . In this post , we’re going to live diving into strategy issue two : fan out people more evenly around your park . Â

What make crowding on-park ? Â Â

Mutual case of an odd gap of guests include :

• Large site where people slowly bring their way towards the rear from the turnstiles .
• Confusing layouts where some field are difficult to find .
• Popular rides cluster together .
• Restaurant draw people to a certain area around meal times. Â
• Big display cause a bunch surge when it empty out .
• Ride downtime pushes people away from a certain area .
• Inclement weather button masses towards a certain sort of attraction .

So , how act we solve it ? When it comes to fan out masses more evenly around the site , you have respective choices . Some solutions have bigger capital costs , and others get big operational or resource-based price . But , they’re more about ahead planning than spending money . In the remainder of this article , we’re going to walk you through the choice available for beating the crowds at your park , whether it ‘s your first season or your fiftieth .

Tactic 1 : Think tactically when planning ride locations

It might look obvious but it ‘s surprisingly neglect – ride placement cost key to crowd dominance and if you ‘re in the process of construct a fresh park or themed field , you have the luxury of design guest flow ahead of time . Aim to divide ‘hero’ ride and ride in the same class for maximum distribution . For example , if all the water rides equal clustered together , then when it’s cold this area of the park could become a dead zone , including any shop , restaurant and infrastructure around it . In the early days of Six Flags Great Adventure , they deliberately placed the two large water rides at opposite end of the site to open the crowd out .

Likewise , if all of your indoor rides be near together , this area could turn congested when it’s wet . If you’re build a haunt/scare maze for Halloween and you lay it next to your specter train , it’s in an country that’s already get to be busy . If you’re going to cluster most of your restaurant together in a food court , it makes sense to place it somewhere central . If you offer alive entertainment , consider having multiple exits that spread guests into unlike division of the park , for example , an exit on each side of the field that leads into unlike state . Hollywood Studios does this brilliantly with the field for Fantasmic , and the ice display at Europa Park too has an exit on each side conduct into different country .

If you’re unsure about where your bottlenecks lie , a warmth mapping tool can help you to identify crowded areas.Â

Tactic 2 : Invest in real-time wait updates

Advertising waiting times , either using a mobile app or cover around the park , helps mass to make informed choices . Await sentence be the currency that masses use to settle which free to wait for . Many park colour code their waiting time ( green , amber or red ) , depending on how long they exist to aid guests create a quick choice .

People can travel towards the areas where the waiting sentence are the short . Of class , it only works if the await times are accurate . Otherwise , it could be counterproductive . Expect times are more probable to be exact on rides that receive higher throughputs ( so that anomalies average themselves out ) , rid where you can fulfill most of the seats ( it’s easy to serve this with moulded seats rather than bench induct ) , rides with mere cargo processes ( where there’s less opportunity for delays ) , rides where most of the guests board from the same queue , free where the operator can adjust the waiting sentence themselves , and rides where the operators have a good scene of the queue . Â

Tactic 3 : Communication is key

If you know that sure area of your park make busy at specific sentence of day , you can communicate this to guests via digital signage , through your companion app or via your experience platform.Â

Attraction using the Attractions.io program could send a popup message allow guests know that the water rides are particularly in use between 11am-4pm for case . At Halloween , a spooky attraction might get disproportionately busy after it’s begin dark . The app could advocate experiencing it before in the day . Tips for avoiding the worst queues can also live publish on paper map , or promoted on social media.Â

Tactic 4 : Maximise ride throughput with virtual queuing

If ride are unavailable , it much induce a surge at attractions nearby . For model , in my first chore at Alton Towers the queue for Corkscrew could die from 15 second to an hr when Rita , the coaster next to it , disclose down . You can pre-empt this , by adjusting waiting times rapidly , and potentially getting an employee to stand at the entrance to the line of the ride that most people are diverting to , and letting guests know that the wait’s die to cost longer than normal . This is sometimes called ‘queue busting’ . If a ride is getting slammed because a nearby one exist unavailable , you could move some entertainers into this region to add some extra capacity .

If there’s a ride near the entrance that get particularly busy when the park first spread , you could also expend a queue-busting approach , encouraging people to come back after in the day . Alternatively , you could adjust up a virtual queue for a ride that get a peculiarly long queue when masses happen it in the mornings . Europa Park bring in a virtual queue for Voletarium , their fly field but they didn’t issue time slot for the first or final 90 second of the day to give guests a chance to taunt on the fly .

Virtual queues can generally fan out people out around the site , by encouraging people to use attractions with surplus capacity while they’re waiting for a ride with a long wait . This could include ride , but it might as well include shows , store and restaurant . The Thinkwell Group reckon that the average Disney guest spends 15 % of their day shopping .

Key Takeaways  Â

People don’t do random decisions , then if you leave things to chance , a band of guest will end up in the same property . Well interactive wayfinding , clear information about what each attraction make , and exact information about the wait time , help guests to head off the bad queues . Remember , not every guest will know what a ride cost , merely from learn the epithet . An interactive map that helps guests identify the attraction that fit their thrill floor will help to improve navigation and cut crowding .

These things might go obvious , but when park are main planning , there be a lot of mass with their own headache and interests . There can be a tendency to direct also much stress on marketing department , who don’t ever translate the operational issues . They might be more concerned in invest ride depend on which themes they want to use , quite than where it’ll exist well for guest flow . Whilst there equal lots of thing to think about , an operational mindset and serious forward planning , equal guaranteed to build it easier to beat the queues .

To learn more about busting queues and improve operational efficiency , purchase Neil’s book ‘Absolute Efficiency : Book One : A Guide to Operational Efficiency in the Theme Park Industry’ fromWaterstonesorAmazon.

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Neil Wilson

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