Want to sneak to the front of a concert queue without getting caught? Seek out friends and avoid jumping in front of die-hard fans.
A study of people waiting for front-row access to U2 concerts finds that 鈥渟uper-fans鈥� are most irked by queue-jumpers. People were equally peeved whether someone cut in front or behind, and cutters who jumped beside a friend were less likely to attract scorn.
鈥淚 think this cuts to the heart of how to understand [queuing] behaviour,鈥� says , a social psychologist at Dickinson College in Pennsylvania, who led the study.
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Other researchers have tried to unpick the psychology of the queue, though most work has focused on reducing consumer frustration. However, one classic study found that New Yorkers were more likely to react to people who cut in front of them in a subway queue than behind.
Yet Helweg-Larsen argues that such experimental queue-jumping might not be the best way to gauge people鈥檚 true feelings. 鈥淚t鈥檚 uncomfortable to confront someone in a queue,鈥� she says.
鈥楲ine Nazis鈥�
So to get a closer look into the queuer鈥檚 psyche, she and colleague , a U2 fan and anthropologist at in Kentucky, surveyed fans waiting for access to the 鈥減it鈥� area, smack in front of the stage.
Up to a day before the concert, fans with 鈥済eneral admission鈥� tickets form a line outside the venue. The queue is self-policed, and venue security takes a hands-off approach. Instead, marker-pen-wielding 鈥渓ine Nazis鈥� enforce order by marking each person鈥檚 place in line on her hand, Helweg-Larsen and LoMonaco note.
At four U2 concerts in Philadelphia and Atlanta, Helweg-Larsen and LoMonaco asked about 500 queuers how they felt about a series of line intrusions scenarios. The researchers tweaked the relative positions of the queuer and cutter, whether the cutter targeted a friend or not, and the length of the time the queuer had waited. They also noted respondents鈥� devotion to U2.
The relative position of the cutter didn鈥檛 seem to matter, they found. 鈥淵ou鈥檙e equally screwed if you get jumped in line one ahead or five ahead or 10 ahead. You鈥檙e still set back the same,鈥� she says.
Law of the queue
Surprisingly, people took just as much offence at people who cut behind as in front. If people were acting in pure self-interest, they would only take offence to people who cut in front, Helweg-Larsen says.
Less shockingly, super-fans tended to get more upset by friendly line intruders than less devoted fans. 鈥淲e found that more committed fans were much more upset about a variety of situations and in general had different attitudes,鈥� she says.
, a management professor at the University of Toronto who studies queues, thinks that social justice plays an important role in people鈥檚 reactions to cutting.
鈥淵ou have this first come, first serve rule you don鈥檛 want to violate,鈥� he says. 鈥淚f the entire queuing system is threatened, people react.鈥�
And while Helweg-Larsen hopes no scofflaws will use her findings to jump queues more effectively, she witnessed one sure-fire tactic at a show, when a late-arriving fan made wild sprint to the front the instant the gates opened. 鈥淣ot everyone has guts enough to do that,鈥� she says.
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