Museum Wayfinding Is Harder Than a Map
Why indoor navigation breaks in buildings, and what it actually takes to make a museum map a visitor can trust.
If you were at LA Fleet Week this year, you may have noticed something unusual about the lines for the popular ship tours: there weren’t really lines at all. We partnered with Battleship IOWA and LA Fleet Week to build a new virtual queuing system, which made its debut at the annual event.
Anyone who has waited for a ship tour knows the old routine — a long queue, shuffling feet, a lot of sun, and the nagging question of whether you’d ever make it aboard. LA Fleet Week is about celebrating the nation’s service members and enjoying a community event, not spending half the day in a snaking queue.
As the Daily Breeze reported, "Day 1 of LA Fleet Week welcomes hundreds to celebrate the nation's service members" — and part of that welcome was that visitors weren’t stuck standing in place.
These are exactly the kinds of challenges our museum solutions are built to solve: pairing a visitor experience goal with practical, manageable technology.
Before virtual queuing, large events like LA Fleet Week faced a familiar challenge: huge crowds and long waits for the most popular attractions. That meant frustration for attendees, and hours spent standing in line instead of grabbing a bite, exploring other displays, or simply soaking in the atmosphere.
Our virtual queuing system replaces the physical line with a digital one, giving attendees their time back. Here’s what that looked like on the ground.
See more of what we build for museums and events.
Reserve a spot digitally: Instead of joining a physical line, visitors reserved their whole party’s place in the digital queue from their phones. For this event, geo-fencing ensured visitors were within 4 miles of the event site in order to book a place in the queue.
Receive a barcode: Once a spot was reserved, the system generated a unique digital barcode — the visitor’s ticket to their place in the virtual line.
Explore freely: With their spot secured, attendees were free to roam the entire event — visiting food vendors, checking out other displays, or relaxing — without the stress of missing their turn.
Get a return time: The system managed the flow of visitors and assigned each party a return time. Visitors could check their screen to see how close they were getting; when their boarding time arrived, the barcode turned green to let them know it was time to head back.
Scan and enter: At the entry point, visitors presented their barcode to be scanned by staff and walked aboard — no long physical line required.
This isn’t just about convenience. Whether it’s a large-scale event like LA Fleet Week, a special museum exhibition, or a free admission day, we believe the experience should be about engaging, learning, and celebrating — not waiting. And for organizers, a virtual queue makes the day’s operational flow far easier to manage.
If you have a queue in need of an upgrade, we’re happy to chat — reach us at solutions@guruexperience.co.
Behind the scenes of how we turn museum stories into interactive, accessible experiences - plus what we’re learning along the way
