Our in-booth traffic builders draw countless attendees and create long lines with significant wait times. How do I best manage attendees' time in line?

Hats off to you for driving droves of attendees to your booth. But you're right: Waiting in line kind of stinks. And to make matters worse, modern conveniences and online shopping have eliminated many such lines from our everyday lives, so the amount of time we're willing to wait is shorter than it was a few years ago.

That said, research shows that the wait alone is not the real problem. Rather, people tend to perceive wait times as longer than they actually are when they have nothing to do during the delay. In 2015, The Washington Post published an article titled "What really drives you crazy about waiting in line (it actually isn't the wait at all)." The piece offered an example of how boredom negatively impacts wait time by relaying a story about a Manhattan high-rise in the '50s in which the tenants were complaining about long waits for the elevators. The building manager couldn't speed up the lifts, so he installed floor-to-ceiling mirrors near the elevators so people could check their appearance while waiting. After the installation, the complaints virtually stopped.

Certainly, installing a bunch of mirrors in your booth isn't likely to entertain today's attendees for long. But here are some contemporary tips you can employ to make your show-floor delays more bearable and avoid upsetting attendees.

1. Manage Expectations
This one comes straight from the Disney playbook, as the entertainment giant often provides digital displays showing the estimated wait time for each attraction. That way, visitors know what they're in for before they queue up. What's more, the timers typically fudge a bit, adding roughly 10 extra minutes to the true measure. People expecting a one-hour delay, for example, are pleasantly surprised when they reach the front of the line ahead of schedule.

For exhibitors, then, providing an estimated wait time can reduce uncertainty along with attendees' stress and anxiety. If you know you're going to wait for 15 minutes, for instance, you probably won't grow irritated after five minutes and begin grinding your teeth. In addition, a wait-time notice of some sort helps visitors determine whether whatever you're offering is of high enough value for them to expend the necessary time to obtain it. Bottom line: It's better to have a few folks walk away because they're unwilling to endure your wait time than to trap people in a line for an indefinite period and with mysterious deliverables, both of which foster negative attitudes and brand perceptions.

2. Explain the End Game
Dovetailing with No. 1, the next tip also involves setting expectations. But this piece of advice is about deliverables as opposed to timing. Research studies have found that our willingness to wait is directly proportional to the complexity and value of the service we expect to receive. For example, if you know you're going to get a high-quality T-shirt in a choice of colors and featuring your own personal tagline, you'll probably wait much longer than if the payoff is a cheap, white T-shirt with nothing but an exhibitor's logo on the front.

So consider assigning a booth staffer to work the line and answer attendees' questions about what awaits them at the end of the queue. Encourage staffers to spend the majority of their time near the tail end of the line to address newcomers' queries. These visitors presumably have the least info about your offerings and are most likely to bolt if they don't obtain it.

3. Motivate Movement
Studies by psychologist Daniel Kahneman found that the pace of a line is incredibly important to a person's impression of the wait. While in line, people experience two primary emotions: They become beaten down by the delay, and they become heartened whenever the line moves forward. Once they reach the front of the line, their final impression – positive or negative – is entirely due to how they perceived the balance between standing still and moving.

Consequently, you want to keep your lines moving as efficiently as possible, as opposed to completely stalling out at various pinch points. It may be better to construct a longer line via switchbacks that create farther travel distances and more movement than to craft a short line that remains virtually motionless.

4. Streamline Check-In
At corporate events, some of the longest waits occur where people are checking in. While lines for in-exhibit traffic builders are a completely different beast, you can still borrow a few tricks from the event-marketing world to qualify visitors.

Assuming you're gathering lead information as part of your activity (and you certainly should be), think about automating this process with mobile kiosks positioned midway through the line. That way, guests can complete the qualifying process as part of the queue, thereby giving them something to do and breaking up the in-line experience.

What if part of your promotional efforts asked attendees to register for the activity (and provide lead-qualifying info) prior to the show in exchange for a sort of "skip-the-line" token? Like mobile flight check-ins, this setup would allow some participants to bypass the lead-gathering process and scoot ahead of others who failed to register before the show.

5. Entertain Guests
Remember, it's not the wait that makes people unhappy; it's the boredom. So give visitors something to think about other than the delay. For example, have staffers walk the line offering water and coffee. Or depending on the crowd, employ a mobile beverage cart with bartenders who mix craft cocktails for guests. You could even have a magician walking up and down the line performing card tricks and sleight-of-hand illusions.

Granted, no one likes to wait in line. However, if you ensure guests understand what awaits them and how long the wait might be, and you craft a line that moves well and keeps people occupied along the way, attendees will exit the queue with a more positive impression of the experience and your brand.