NextMe Powers Peacock's Camp Crystal Lake Virtual Queue Activation with IHEARTCOMIX at New York Comic Con

The challenge

Camp Crystal Lake was always going to outrun its capacity. The experience lived in a compact booth at New York Comic Con, with room for only a small physical line, while demand for a Peacock horror premiere was enormous.

• Limited space for a physical line. Groups of up to six moved through the experience at a time, and a traditional line could never have held the crowd that wanted in.
• Waivers without a bottleneck. Every guest needed a signed waiver, with guardians signing for minors, and the form had to meet Peacock’s privacy standards. Collecting paperwork at the door would have slowed every turn.
• Demand that filled the queue in hours. Sign-ups surged as soon as the show floor opened, and even the virtual queue filled up within the first couple of hours.

The solution

NextMe paired a virtual queue with a small physical line, so fans could explore until it was nearly their turn, with one consolidated flow for sign-up and waivers.

• A hybrid virtual and physical queue. Fans scanned a QR code on the large signs at the booth and joined a single first-come queue with Self Check-in, then explored Comic Con. Only groups who received a text calling them back were allowed into the small physical line, so everyone waiting at the booth was ready to go on deck. Waitlist Management let staff call groups in as space opened up, and guests who could not make their turn could reply to move back instead of losing their place.

• Digital waivers built into sign-up. Waivers lived inside the same flow. After scanning at the booth, guests completed sign-up and their waiver on their own phones, with guardians signing for minors, so no one stood at the entrance filling out paperwork.

• A branded Virtual Waiting Room. While they waited, fans landed on a Virtual Waiting Room dressed in Crystal Lake artwork. It showed their place in line, told them when to head back to the booth, and linked straight to the trailer.
• Guest-facing support onsite. A NextMe lead and IHEARTCOMIX’s brand ambassadors worked the booth together, balancing firmness with friendliness. The brand ambassadors made sure every group had completed the online waiver and was complete before heading in, keeping each turn quick.

The results

The virtual queue turned overwhelming Comic Con demand into a steady flow of fans and a lot of time spent with the brand.

• Over 15,000 fans signed up. Demand ran far beyond what the booth could ever have held in a physical line, and the hybrid queue kept it flowing for four days.
• A booth that got faster every day. By Sunday the booth was moving nearly twice as many fans per hour as it did on Thursday.
• Digital waivers completed before the entrance. Groups signed waivers on their own phones, and brand ambassadors made sure every group was complete before heading in, so check-in never became a bottleneck.
• Over 111 hours of brand engagement. Fans spent over 111 hours in the Virtual Waiting Room while they waited, checking their place in line and clicking through to the trailer.