This isn't a joke. The answer is - always. Whenever you have visitors standing still in a space you have an opportunity to talk to them. Use it.
On a super peak day at Anglesey Abbey the queue to the restaurant would be out of the front door, overlapping the queue for admissions and often, the queue for the loos. It was like queue-city! And it wasn't pleasant.
At our best, we worked that queue - all of us. We worked our way down the line, talking to people, offering tantalising bits of cake; we talked about the menus, we told them stories of the property. We made that waiting time less boring for them and an opportunity for us.
When we visited Legoland in Billund, Denmark, the site of queues snaking back seemingly hours from ride entrances filled us with dread. An excited, but easily bored, five-year-old in tow, we dutifully joined the back of the line with a fake smile on our faces and settled ourselves in for the duration.
And then, we spotted lego! In the centre of the queue was lego - lots of it. And surrounding it was lots of excited little people who no longer had to endure the endless line and their grumpy parents - who of course, were now slightly less grumpy.
At Warner's Harry Potter Studio Tours, the experience starts in the queue where you not only encounter Harry's under-stair cupboard, but you have the intrigue of what's behind the door at the end. It's well-managed, clever thinking.
The point to all this is that you don't have to just accept a queue for what it is. You can make it work for you. Have a think about this:
1. How could you work the queue? Who are your best talkers who can engage even the grumpiest visitor?
2. Be open and honest. Tell people how long they can expect to stay in the queue, but make the end worth it
3. What information can you give people to show them your place is worth a visit despite the queue? How, in that moment, can you offer them the reason to return?
4. What can you offer people to look at that gives them a taste of what's to come?
Every attraction sometimes has a queue. Do you know when those times are? I can help you explore your peak time challenges and turn them into an opportunity.
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