Line sitting is sitting in line, on the pavement, for personal gain. It often involves waiting for the release of a movie, games console, or monetary gain through being paid to hold a space for someone else. It has been widely reported in the media that the unemployed or homeless have been paid to queue and purchase a product on behalf of another person. It has been reported that some people just enjoy sitting in line, often for media attention at major events. There are also people who enjoy queuing for the latest consumer electronics and then destroying them with a hammer or other object in front of the other peoplewaiting in line to purchase the same item. "Smash Our Stuff" is the name a group of Canadians go by, who have in the past been paid to smash a brand new iPod Nanoout of the box.
Professionally
In Washington DC it has been reported that lobbyists and politicians employ "professional line sitters" to wait in line for them at various hearings. Darren Hromadka got into the line-sitting game when he learned his colleagues in Omaha, Nebraska, were paying college students to hold seats for them at Warren Buffett’s annual Berkshire Hathaway shareholder meeting. Some 40,000 attendees turn out for a three-day event nicknamed the "Woodstock of Capitalism", and many of them wake up before dawn in order to get good seats to see Buffett speak. It’s such a mob scene that Buffett himself told the in 2017 that hiring a person to stand in line for seats to the meeting is “probably what I would do.” Hromadka thought there had to be a better way to bring together people who want a spot in line and people who are willing to do the work. So he classified each group, calling them “hoppers” and “spotters,” respectively, and founded the . The idea is simple: Hoppers post requests on the app and say how much they’re willing to pay, and spotters claim the gigs. The average price is about $25 an hour. When the hopper shows up to take the spotter’s place in line, InLine4You processes the payment from the Hopper and sends funds to the Spotters account. “It is giving the gift of time,” says Hromadka. In New York, a company called SOLD Inc, claims to be "New York's only professional line sitting and line management business, however, they are not the only business, but certainly the most successful.. They have waited for iPhones, Saturday Night Live tickets, concerts, Cronuts etc. Its founder, Robert Samuel came up with the idea after offering to wait for the iPhone 5 in 2012 and was continually paid for various spaces in line. Not intending to purchase the phone originally, he ended up having enough money to purchase one when the store opened the next day. Greg Packer has been labelled a "professional line sitter" by the international press.
Academic Research
The practice of line sitting has drawn academic research. A study conducted by Georgetown University and Johns Hopkins University employs queueing theory and game theory to study the economic and operational dynamics of line sitting. The researchers contrast line sitting with the commonly used pay-for-priority scheme and show why line sitting can be a win-win for the service provider and customers alike.
