Standing in line . . . rain or shine to see Banksy vs Bristol Museum
They say that if British people see a queue, they feel compelled to join it, and the constant growth of the Banksy queue throughout the summer has proved this point once and for all.
As temporary exhibition manager, Helen Edwards has had the unenviable task of managing the queue throughout the last 12 weeks.
"It's been fun," she says, "but it's certainly a world away from my usual job of managing the museum's reception team.
"I first heard about the show just a few days before it went public. I had to know, so that I could help to organise taking on the 32 extra members of temporary staff that were needed to help manage the influx of visitors.
"But at the beginning of the summer we had no idea just how popular the exhibition was going to be. Initial estimates had talked about 100,000 visitors over the course of the three months – though in reality we've welcomed more than 300,000 people into the museum to see the show.
"In fact, right at the beginning, we thought that the queue would just about fill the forecourt in front of the museum. But within the first few hours on the first day, we realised that we were underestimating the interest.
"I can remember going outside and seeing that the queue was already stretching down much of Park Row. I stopped and thought, we're going to need to organise something a bit special here.
"The first manifestation of the queue went down the hill, but it immediately became clear that this method meant that people were having to walk in the road, and we didn't want to put anybody's safety in jeopardy.
"So we turned the queue around so that it was running up the hill. But then we needed to initiate some sort of system for a jump in the queue, because we didn't feel it was fair to completely block off the front of Brown's restaurant."
The system that Helen came up with involved stamping the hands of visitors when they reached the end of the first queue, in order to prevent queue jumpers simply joining the back of the final section of the line.
"By this time, we had realised that the queues were only going to keep growing, so we had arranged for University Road to be closed to traffic, and we had put in place the zig-zag queuing system.
"A few weeks in, we realised that some particularly keen queue jumpers had managed to forge the stamp, so we had to come up with a series of two, rather more complicated stamps.
"But, generally, we've not had much of a problem from people trying to jump the queue. The fact is, the queue polices itself. When people are spending up to six hours in a queue, they're not going to stand by and just let people jump in ahead of them.
"There have been one or two cases where the queue has spoken out angrily in such large numbers that you know the people they're pointing out must be queue jumpers, so we've quickly slipped in and pulled them out.
"But for the vast majority of the time the atmosphere in the queue has been fun and very fair. People have been spending so much time queuing up that they've actually had time to make friends with the strangers around them, so there's been a lot of camaraderie and good humour.
"That's been a tremendous relief for us," Helen adds. "We've had 10 members of staff constantly managing the queue, and there's no doubt, it could have been a nightmare job if the atmosphere had been different.
"If people had been grumbling all day long about the length of the wait, it would have been a horrible job, but as it is, everyone has remained very upbeat. They've queued with a smile."
Helen says she was only approached once by "professional queuers".
"I know you do get people who take money in order to hold somebody's place in a long queue for a few hours – I've heard about it happening at some of the big events in London. But it never took off here," she says.
In fact, Helen says, it wasn't necessary to have the "professionals" holding people's places.
"It goes back to the fact that the queue policed itself," she explains. "Everyone knew they were in the same boat, and people were patient with each other, and allowed everyone else to slip out of the queue for a few moments to visit the toilet or to grab a coffee or some lunch.
"As long as people weren't gone too long, the strangers around them would hold their place in the queue.
"But of course, we also saw lots of local enterprising coffee shops and cafes sending over waitresses to take people's food orders from the queue.
"It's always been very lively, because there has been a constant flow of buskers and street performers – magicians, jugglers, one-man bands and even artists, who have carried out art projects with the people in the queue.
"One day, a guy came along with 20 beach balls. He threw them into the crowd and told them to keep them up for as long as possible. It certainly kept people occupied. They managed to keep them up for more than three hours."
The biggest crisis in the queue came at the height of summer, when a group of angry wasps decided to crash the party.
"I imagine they were drawn to the queue because of all the fizzy drinks and ice cream," Helen says. "But in the course of a couple of hours we found ourselves having to administer first aid to a dozen wasp stings.
"But thankfully, that was the most serious situation our first-aiders had to face.
"We've had three people faint in the heat throughout the 12 weeks, but thankfully nobody has taken seriously ill, and there have been no babies born in the queue.
"There was one lady who decided she was going to queue, despite the fact she was nine months pregnant. However on this occasion, I think everybody agreed that she should be the one person who would be allowed to jump right to the front."
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