Eurofurence Information > Feedback

Queues and Queuing: The Who, The Why, The Where and the When

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Codewolf:
Hi all, its a day later than promised as i have had to read through a lot of posts however here is some feedback and some answers from my end.

Firstly for those of you who are going "who is this guy" - i am Codewolf, i am one of the the Team Leads for 'Crowd Control' in the security team. If there's a queue, or a large group of people, its my responsibility to look into the why, the how, the where, and the what for.

Answers to Questions and Feedback Points


--- Quote ---Queuing in general seemed a real clusterfuck this year.  With a cluttered as hell lobby, queues run through there hit massive problems, queues going out the front door meant people were cold.  Queues into the convention centre perhaps?  Also the time where an entire queue was forcibly disbanded, told to come back later, meaning there was no way you could guarantee your spot near the front, was very poorly handled.
--- End quote ---
You have no idea, unfortunately with a new hotel and a new layout we had issues where we had to try to organise the queuing for an event at the main stage at the last moment.  There were events that had queues we didn't realise were going to have queues which we had to sort out, also with the main stage being in the location it was in relation to registration and access to the Convention center we had to really think on our feet.

Queues going outside:  While not ideal we found this was one of the better ways of doing the queuing system this year as this meant that we weren't blocking access to any of the main routes to and from the CC, nor were we asking people to queue round into the bar, or by the 2nd block elevators and Con Ops.

Queues being Disbanded: This was a decision taken by me multiple times, this was due to an event being delayed by a significant amount of time (ie longer than 45mins).  I gave a time for people to start queuing again though, yes you lost your place in the queue that was there, but to begin with this meant that we could free up security for dealing with other events, it also meant that there wasn't a queue for one event that was intersecting with a queue for another event.



--- Quote ---Rearrange that queue. There will always be queues, so please put it somewhere where it's more or less bearable to wait.
--- End quote ---
Hopefully next year we will be locating the main stage in a different location (bear in mind this will be decided closer to the time), even if we don't move the main stage we now we have an idea of the kind of traffic flow and footfall of the hotel at certain times so we can plan a queue accordingly.


--- Quote ---So please set up a queue rope (with "wait here for next elevator" sign) in each elevator lobby and have a volunteer enforcing things when things are busy
--- End quote ---
As has been stated above, we now have a decent idea on the footfall around the hotel, unfortunately this year we (security) did not have the manpower to be able to have one stand at the lifts at all times, on the odd occasion when a large panel had finished we did try to dispatch a few people to the lifts to ease congestion as much as we could.


--- Quote --- Could the queues instead take turn to direction of rotunda
--- End quote ---
That is one possibility we would be looking into for next year if the main stage does not move.

Feedback from our side
Please note this is my personal feedback, not from the staff or security as a whole.


* If a sign says "Please come back at X", or "do not queue before Y" then please take note of these, we usually state this so that we have a chance to set up a queuing system and get all of the barriers etc in place on time, unfortunately this year people queuing over an hour before the event was scheduled to start made our jobs that little bit harder managing the queues.
* If a member of security asks you politely to step out of the lift so that a fursuiter can get on, please don't just give them a blank look, or stand there trying to do your best goldfish impression.
* If you're talking to someone on the security team and we dart off or look blankly into space mid-sentence, we're not being rude; we're just listening to the voices in our ear, we are all wearing radios :)

Lightfox:
This has probably been said already, but given how big the con has become, and how large some queues can be now, how about planning their management in advance? Like for instance, physically tracing a path using small pillars and strips, the way they do it in theme parks. This would make queues more ordered and easier to manage.

Ralesk:

--- Quote from: Lightfox on 03.09.2014, 00:51:16 ---This has probably been said already, but given how big the con has become, and how large some queues can be now, how about planning their management in advance? Like for instance, physically tracing a path using small pillars and strips, the way they do it in theme parks. This would make queues more ordered and easier to manage.

--- End quote ---

I think that's something that Codewolf said they will do now that they know the crowd flow in this venue.

Codewolf:

--- Quote from: Ralesk on 03.09.2014, 08:38:25 ---
--- Quote from: Lightfox on 03.09.2014, 00:51:16 ---This has probably been said already, but given how big the con has become, and how large some queues can be now, how about planning their management in advance? Like for instance, physically tracing a path using small pillars and strips, the way they do it in theme parks. This would make queues more ordered and easier to manage.

--- End quote ---

I think that's something that Codewolf said they will do now that they know the crowd flow in this venue.

--- End quote ---
That is correct :) while we did have some basic plans in place for this year, without knowing exactly the numbers expected and the flow of the hotel it was very much a case of guesswork this year :)

Venture:
Using matrix signs and / or LCD tv's for croud control is something we do often at our work. Might also help out. Also using EFPrime (which was already used sometimes). Keep it up, I think you all did your best given the circumstances!

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