What is a pre-queue in ticketing?
A ticketing pre-queue is a holding area that opens before ticket sales begin. It lets people arrive ahead of the onsale without necessarily giving the earliest visitors first access to inventory. At the advertised start, the organiser can move eligible visitors into a live queue using a chosen ordering rule, such as randomisation or first-in-first-out. Those policies are not equivalent and should be explained before customers join.
How does a pre-queue differ from a waiting room?
A waiting room regulates how many visitors can reach the ticketing application at once. A pre-queue refers specifically to the period before the sales window opens. After the onsale begins, the waiting-room system can begin admitting visitors at a rate the application and inventory systems can support.
What counts as fair?
Randomising people who arrived before a cutoff may reduce the advantage of automated early arrivals, but it does not prove that bots or multiple sessions have been excluded. First-in-first-out rewards arrival order, but can create incentives to get in extremely early. The organiser should choose and publish a policy appropriate to the audience, accessibility requirements and presale conditions.
Example: For tickets released at 10:00, a pre-queue could open at 09:30. People present at 10:00 might be assigned a random ordering, while visitors arriving later join behind that group. This is one possible policy, not the definition of every pre-queue.
What should teams test?
Test refreshes, expired sessions, multiple browser tabs, mobile connections, accessibility of status announcements, and whether an admitted visitor can finish checkout before a session expires. Treat queue positions and estimated waits as operational estimates, not guarantees of tickets. The number of customers admitted should reflect measured checkout and inventory capacity, not just raw web traffic.
The related articles on ticketing waiting rooms and high-demand onsales cover the wider system; this page answers the narrower question of what happens before sales open.