How the National Gallery of Art Is Experimenting With the Science of Lines

On a recent Saturday morning, I went to the National Gallery of Art to check out “Paris 1874: The Impressionist Moment.” But I didn’t actually go to see the exhibit—I was there to stand in line. Featuring big-ticket paintings by the likes of Monet, Renoir, and Degas, “Paris 1874” has proved extremely popular, and on this morning the queue stretched to the building’s rotunda. Still, my 40-minute journey to the front was not unpleasant. I was greeted by lots of cheerful faces ready to answer questions, offered collapsible stools to sit on, and shown QR codes and brochures full of wall text to read in advance.

None of that was an accident. The museum has put a lot of effort into thinking about how to make the wait less grating, especially since the creation of its Visitor Experience and Evaluation office about four years ago. Led by Eric Bruce and Stockton Toler, the NGA’s chief and deputy experience officers, respectively, the team tries to make the inherently unfun act of waiting tolerable, and maybe even a little enjoyable.

Tapping into “queuing theory”—an academic field led by researchers such as MIT’s Richard Larson and visitor-experience powerhouses like Walt Disney World—Bruce and Toler have recently incorporated some principles of line psychology into their approach. Generally, people want a queue to be fair (parts of the NGA lines are in a snaking pattern that prevents cutting), honest (the museum has installed signs that provide accurate live wait times), and not boring (two video screens flank the entrance to the exhibit with a specially made short film). The exhibit’s introductory text is also posted outside the entrance rather than inside, a shift from tradition that speeds things up and gives museum-goers something to do that’s more engaging than Candy Crush. “Our main question is: If people have to wait, how do we make that more of an experience?” says Toler.

As the holiday rush kicks in around November, the NGA might shift to a virtual queue system, in which visitors can check in using their phone numbers and roam the rest of the museum until notified to return—a system that not only eliminates boredom but encourages visitors to investigate art they might not otherwise encounter.

For now, however, weekend visitors continue to wait 40-plus minutes to gaze at the colorful brushstrokes of early Impressionists. To Bruce, seeing the opening room for the first time, where Monet’s famed “Impression, Sunrise” hangs, is something worth waiting for—and the line itself can be part of the fun. “If it runs well and you’re in this collective of people who are also excited to see what you’re seeing, it fills you with anticipation and makes you feel like you’re a part of something larger,” he says. “That can add value to your experience.”

This article appears in the November 2024 issue of Washingtonian.

Omega Ilijevich

Editorial Fellow