Arthur Levine

Special for USA TODAY

People love theme park rides. The lines that they have to endure in order to board the rides? Not so much. But when tens of thousands of visitors arrive at a park, all of whom want to experience its major attractions, waiting around is inevitable. Some park operators, such as Disney and Six Flags, offer virtual queue programs that allow visitors to reserve ride times and skip some of the lines.

However, attraction designers have been designing queues that are so compelling, guests may not want to skip the lines. With themed environments that advance the storytelling and cleverly set the stage for the main event ride, parks have been able to turn the tedium of slowly snaking along in stanchion drudgery into, if not exactly a heavenly experience, at least an enjoyable one.

Helping to advance the trend are a cadre of graduates from Savannah College of Art and Design. Four years ago, the university (which also has campuses in Atlanta, Hong Kong and France) introduced a Themed Entertainment Design program (yes, there is a school for that.) The first and only one of its kind in the world, the graduate-level program prepares students for careers crafting fanciful attractions and lands at theme parks. One of its courses focuses on the art of creating queues.

"We see queues as great opportunities," says Gregory Beck, dean of SCAD's School of Entertainment Arts. "It's not about waiting. The best queues are quite exciting and engaging."

No matter how engaging, no preshow line could completely negate hanging around 90 minutes or more in anticipation of a 4-minute E-Ticket ride. But Beck says that Disney and Universal in particular have become adept at engaging their audiences throughout the entire attraction experience.

He cites the Star Tours attractions at Disneyland and Disney World, which are based on the "Star Wars" franchise, as one of the best examples. "Everyone knows the backstory," Beck says. Before boarding Starspeeder vehicles that will send them to galaxies far, far away, guests wind their way through a spaceport and encounter convincing animatronic representations of popular droids R2-D2 and C-3PO and other artifacts from the movies. "To be able to capitalize on that in the queue is a master stroke," notes Beck.

As attractions get more sophisticated, the bar at theme parks rises. The current high water mark for park queues, according to the SCAD professor, is shared by two Harry Potter attractions at Universal's parks in Florida and California. One invites muggles into the hallowed halls of Hogwarts Castle where paintings mysteriously spring to life and other sorcery unfolds. The other allows guests to enter the marble-columned Gringotts Bank and see lifelike goblin tellers hard at work.

Park designers don't necessarily have to rely on well-known intellectual properties to develop appealing queues. SCAD student Andrew Reiff says that the queue design class has been using Disney's Animal Kingdom ride, Expedition Everest, as a case study. The Florida attraction features a roller coaster ride in the Himalayas and an encounter with the fearsome Yeti. To ride the rails, passengers first have to trek into a Nepalese village and through an elaborate museum stuffed with exhibits and relics.

"The attention to story is incredible," says Reiff. "The queue has become less the avenue to the experience and more an integrated part of the complete experience."

Another student in the queue class, Rachel Blake, says that she enjoys lingering in the Expedition Everest line and taking everything in. But she warns that queue designers need to find a balance. "It's great to make the line entertaining -- but not too entertaining." If guests don't move quickly enough through the queue, it defeats its purpose. The goal is to keep visitors happy while getting them to the attraction as quickly as possible. "If you can combine function and form together, you can create something that's both pleasant and efficient," Blake adds.

The next generation of theme park visionaries explores issues such as form, function, and Yetis in SCAD's design classes. They bring a variety of disciplines to the program, including architecture, interior design, storytelling, engineering, and theater. Taught by Disney park veterans, students develop the plans for an attraction over the course of the queue class. Each student chooses a theme for his or her ride, designs storyboards, and considers practical logistics such as the theoretical number of guests, the amount of space needed to accommodate the queue, the locations for temporary overflow queues on busy days, sight lines for guests, and even things such as the incorporation of sponsor acknowledgements.

For her class project, Blake designed a queue for a Super Mario Bros. attraction. (Coincidentally, Universal Parks recently announced a partnership with Nintendo; the student's SCAD work could be fortuitous.) In her version, guests become characters in the videogame world. The queue includes tunnels into which participants can ascend to different game levels.

Blake's concept piggybacks an emerging trend at theme parks to offer interactive experiences in queues. At the Seven Dwarfs Mine Train at Disney World's Magic Kingdom, for example, riders can sort and wash virtual jewels at stations throughout the line.

Another trend, which the SCAD class also covers, is the inclusion of holding areas for attractions. When Disney World added a second Dumbo ride platform to address the demand for the popular attraction, it also built an air-conditioned space that includes playground equipment. Riders are given restaurant-style pagers, and can freely move around the area until the pager alerts them that it's time to move outside and board the ride.

With kids barreling down slides and navigating climbing nets in climate-controlled comfort, they and their families don't feel like they are suffering in a line. Instead of waiting for what feels like forever in the hot sun for a few spins on flying elephants, Magic Kingdom visitors may now want to keep Dumbo waiting.