Hall H goes high tech

14 JULY 2014



Over the past few years, CCI has really stepped up their game in some areas. (Those of you who lost out in the registration lottery may feel differently.) Now they've gone above and beyond by developing a tool to help everyone cope with the madness that is the Hall H line.

The wristbands, called Toucan Trackers, will be passed out to people waiting for the first panel of the day. They show you your chances for getting into that first panel. The data collected will be used to place color-coded markers along the line route, so everyone knows what percentage of the room will have to clear for them to get in. It's not going to be super accurate, obviously, since we can't predict who will decide to exit after what panel, but it at least will help you decide if you want to continue waiting.

How it will work:

• Wristbands will be passed out as people get in line but will stop at 1 am and resume at 5 am. I'm curious what it will be like to be a Hall H wristband volunteer.

• You'll have to show your wristband to get into the first Hall H panel of the day. But you don't need it for the other panels.

• There will be four colors/sections, for 25%, 50% and so on to communicate where you fall in the room's capacity.

• The disabled seating line will also have wristbands.

• If you leave your line, you can't just rejoin it based on your color of wristband - someone needs to be saving your spot, just like before.

• If you get in line for that first panel and there are no more wristbands to be passed out, you probably won't get in. There's a tiny chance you could, but probably not.

• This is interesting: you can't just go get in line and request 3 wristbands for you and your 2 friends who will show up later. One person, one wristband. Your friends need to be there right then or they'll have to go to the back of the line. That's harsh.

Okay, colored wristbands may not be the most sophisticated devices to calculate your Hall H chances. When I first saw the Toucan post, I thought they were going to bring out a giant digital scoreboard with percentages on it, like they had that last horrible year of on-site pre-registration. Not so much. But this will be somewhat helpful. The classifications are an improvement over the status quo of wandering past an endless line, joining the end of it and then just waiting for hours with no real idea of how many people are ahead of you.