NEWS: Lo-Q launches Q-credits water park queuing system

[jedimaster1227]

Lo-Q has sent us an official press release regarding their exciting new product, Q-credits, aimed at water parks and their respective guests.

 

Lo-Q launches revolutionary new virtual queuing system for water parks

 

Q-credits promises guests a future free from standing in queue lines; park operators improve visitor experience and boost revenues

 

Lo-Q plc, the leading supplier of virtual queuing systems to theme parks, today launched Q-credits at the IAAPA Attractions Expo 2010 in Orlando, Florida on booth 3002. Created initially for water parks, Lo-Q’s innovative new product is lightweight and fully waterproof and allows all of the park patrons to enjoy the slides and attractions free of long queue-lines. The device has a cashless function which means guests do not need to carry money or credit cards around with them, making it totally secure and convenient. Q-credits has been tested at Aquopolis, one of the largest water parks in Spain, where visitors were invited to try out the new product for the last week of the 2010 season.

 

Q-credits is simple to use. Guests wear a lightweight, waterproof wristband that starts to clock up credits the minute they enter the waterpark. The wristband clearly displays the number of credits. Guests compare this with the number of credits required for each ride, then choose their ride and enjoy the whole experience without a long queue. Meanwhile, visitors are free to spend their time as they choose, relaxing with friends and family in the park grounds, having lunch or enjoying an ice-cream while their credits build up. Furthermore, Q-credits offers a range of premium services such as top-ups and special ‘gold card’ options that can be sold to fast-track guests onto the most popular rides.

 

Leonard Sim, Founding Director of Lo-Q commented, “When you consider that the average family of four could pay well over $100 for a visit to a major Florida water park, then avoiding time spent in long queues is an attractive option. At the same time as providing guests with a much more pleasant park experience, park operators have a unique opportunity to increase revenues, confident they are working with a partner they can trust with over 10 years’ experience in queue line management technology.”

 

Q-credits offers a range of benefits to park operators. Promising guests ‘no long queues’ enhances the visitor experience and creates a competitive differentiator. The flexibility of the system means that Q-credits can be branded and customised to reflect an individual park’s style or promote their special offers. A range of premium services combined with increased retail spend as guests have more free time to enjoy restaurants and shops provide additional opportunities for revenue creation. Easy to introduce, install and operate, Q-credits also guarantees extra security, provides access control to the park and can act as a smart key for lockers.

 

Q-credits is the latest addition to Lo-Q-s family of virtual queuing solutions. Q-bot hand-held and Q-txt mobile phone reservation systems put customers in control of their day unlike traditional paper-based queuing systems. Visitors can be updated in real time when their queue slot is available. They can be advised should their ride break down, or even updated on special promotions and events running throughout the day.

 

Lo-Q virtual queuing solutions are used in major theme parks around the world, including numerous Six Flags theme parks in the USA and Canada, Dollywood near Tennessee USA, LEGOLAND® Windsor in the UK, Dreamworld in Australia, Parque Isla Magica in Spain, Mirabilanda in Italy, and Lake Compounce, USA.

Edited July 6, 2011 by jedimaster1227

[Moose]

FInally!

 

I always hate having a q-bot for a park and then having to put into a locker and wait in dreadful waterpark lines.

[Not For Sale]

Not even being a big water park guy, I am SO into this idea.

[chemical_echo]

I love water parks, but the reason I never go is because I hate standing in ridiculous long unshaded lines for an extremely short slide.

[krazekiddd]

Yay!!! This makes me very happy!!

[cal1br3tto]

Exciting news! This really highlights the potential for innovation in virtual queuing systems.

[tatertot3710]

I like it, but my only question is to how guests will get to the start of the attraction when it's their time to ride.

[SharkTums]

I would pay gobs of money for waterpark Lo-Q!!!!

[Jerrykoala2112]

I wish I had one of these when I was waiting 50 minutes for Black Anaconda at Noah's Ark...

 

Totally excited!

[jedimaster1227]

http://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/worlds-first-water-park-virtual-queue-system-debuts-at-six-flags-white-water-125003399.html

 

Six Flags Atlanta Properties and Lo-Q plc have once again teamed up to introduce the newest technology in virtual queuing designed to shorten wait times for guests at the Southeast's largest water park, Six Flags White Water.

 

The virtual queuing system, aptly dubbed The FLASH Pass after the popular system used at Six Flags theme parks, utilizes a revolutionary new RFID wristband that is lightweight and waterproof. Guests can use The FLASH Pass wristband to reserve a "virtual" place in line at the park's most popular slides. When the reservation time arrives, guests enter via a separate entrance, avoiding the need to stand in line.

 

"Six Flags Over Georgia debuted the world's first theme park virtual queuing system ten years ago," said Melinda Ashcraft, Six Flags Atlanta Properties Park President. "It is certainly fitting that Six Flags White Water would be the world's first water park to feature this exciting new technology."

 

Six Flags White Water is open daily through August 14 while weekends-only operations continue through September 5, 2011.

 

For more information about Six Flags White Water, visit www.sixflags.com/whitewater.

 

For more information about Lo-Q Incorporated, visit www.lo-q.com.

[deathbydinn]

Here's a Screamscape article about prices and how the system is implimented.

 

The LoQ system is up and running at Six Flags WhiteWater already it seems, and as can be expected for something very new like this, there are some kinks in the system to be worked out. I’ve been told there are two purchase options… the lower was sold for either $10 or $15 and the higher was $20 or $25. I’m not sure if they were testing different prices or if the price increases on busy days vs slow days, but the main difference is that your wait time is cut in half on the more expensive version.

In both versions, you are given a green digital watch style device, which you scan at various kiosks around the park to make a ride reservation and the watch will countdown the time until you can ride. I’ve heard they have a good number of attractions on the system, but your results with each attraction will vary from it being a good addition, to it being a complete ill-thought out nightmare.

The addition of the FlashPass system didn’t seem to cause too much of a problem on rides like Run-A-Way River, Tornado or Bahama Bob-Slide as the line moves like it normally would, only when a FP group arrives they are cut to the front and put on the next available raft. The effect on the three Slippery Ridge Tower slides and Dragon’s Tail also were reported to not be that bad on the Stand-By queue.

Things take a turn for the worse over at Wildwater Lagoon where the attraction simply did not have enough rafts available to handle even a basic capacity single line, let alone handle the impact of having Flash Pass on it. Standby guests were stuck in place for long periods of time as the low capacity operation could barely keep up with the Flash Pass line. According to our reader’s review here, “it all went horribly wrong” and “guests not using [Flash Pass] might as well skip this one.”

The problems got worse over at the nearby body slides tower. The normal three queues at the top for the three slides are still there, one for each of the three slides, but now one of the three slides was reserved only for Flash Pass creating a double ended problem. The system did not allow for Stand-By Riders to ride the one Flash Pass slide at all, and when there were no FP riders waiting, it simply sat unused and unavailable for the line of regular guests. By contrast, those who purchased FP could only use their benefit on the one slide and not the other two.

This reminds me of some of the ill conceived ideas put into place when Flash Pass was first installed at some Six Flags parks on certain coasters, where the occasional park would try to reserve an entire row or car only for Flash Pass riders in the same fashion, not realizing that this caused more problems than it was worth and cut back on the attractions overall capacity by sending out empty seats. Now keep in mind that any problems (and prices) mentioned were during a soft-open period of the system, and things will likely continue to be adjusted and modified as the season continues. But I guess the big question here is, does a virtual queue have a place in a waterpark environment, or was the infrastructure simply not designed to accommodate anything other than a standard single queue system? To date Walt Disney World, who is well known for taking as much advantage of their own FastPass system, has yet to even attempt a waterpark version.

Update – According to Six Flags the pricing of the system is still in flux, but as of today it is set to have separate weekday and weekend rates. $15/$30 (reg/gold) on Weekdays and $20/$35 on Weekends.

 

http://screamscape.com/html/six_flags_over_georgia.htm

[ernierocker]

This would be perfect for us with two small kids. Just buy one and take turns riding the slides while the other one hangs out in the kid's area.

[Jay20016]

Most quick queue system work at theme parks because of alternate entrances; how is this going to be handled with one entrance to the slide and most having already narrow stairs on the way up to them?

 

As the Scream Scape article mentions, you can pretty much forget about riding a bowl, funnel, half-pipe slide, single body slide (think speed slide, as most parks only have one free-fall type) or any other capacity nightmares. Also, how does it work for tube pick up? Most parks have a line for pick up before you even start up the stairs and waiting in line at the slide, do you bypass both? Are there separate stacks?

 

In theory this sounds nice, but knowing first hand what nonsense a water park goes through daily, I do not envy their people right now.

[SharkTums]

Give them a chance to work the kinks out and see how the season goes. I do believe this is the first large scale installation of a virtual queueing system at a water park. If this ends up working out and we see it spread to other water parks I will be VERY excited!

[robbalvey]

^ Agreed. Think about how much trouble/crap was given to the initial virtual queue installations at parks. Hell, people STILL complain about "paying for line cutting" today. If they can make it work at a water park, I'd be ALL FOR IT!

 

I say bring on MORE virtual queue options!

[SFOG]

The system is installed on 9 of the park's major slides. Depending on the slide, riders either enter the Flash Pass entrance at the bottom of the slide (normal tube pick-up area) and receive priority access to the next tubes (Tornado, the Rapids, Black River Falls, etc.), or they merge at the top of the tower (Runaway River, Dragon's Tail & Body Flumes).

 

There are still some kinks to work out, but overall, I think the system is a great way to offer people the chance to by-pass lines if they want (and the devices are rather affordable... you can't beat $15 a person). The number of Flash Passes are limited and the system automatically adjusts wait times to make sure it's not all Flash Pass users hogging a slide.