Watched a coffee cart get swarmed at a wedding and is event queue chaos a real problem or did I imagine it?
So a while back I went to a wedding that had a coffee cart, and honestly watching it run was a bit painful.
There was no real queue. People just wandered up whenever they felt like it, which kept breaking the barista's flow and he got swarmed pretty fast. Drinks would come out with names on them, but half the time the guest had already wandered off somewhere, so finished cups just sat there going cold. And since there was no way to call out names, people started picking up other people's cups to read the names and find their own, which felt pretty unhygienic.
It stuck with me because it felt so fixable. So I ended up building a QR ordering system for event vendors. Guests scan and order from their phone, the vendor gets one clean queue instead of a mob, and there's a name and ready notification so drinks don't pile up. It can also gate by opening hours and track quantity, so orders auto stop once things are sold out.
Now here's the honest part. I built this entirely from my view as a guest. I haven't actually put it in front of a single vendor yet. So before I go any further I wanted to ask the people who'd actually know:
- If you've run an event cart or stall, is the swarm actually a problem for you, or is it just part of the job that you've kind of made peace with?
- Would a self serve QR queue genuinely help, or would it just create new headaches like guests who can't figure it out or extra setup on an already busy day?
- Is this the kind of thing a vendor would pay a small per event fee for, or is it more of a nice to have?
Not selling anything, no link, just genuinely trying to figure out if this pain is real before I sink more time into it. Brutal feedback totally welcome.