The passing weekend just saw the Sawasdee DC festival come to town in Washington, and for the most part, it was met with welcome arms. However, it wasn’t the food that left a bitter taste in revelers mouths, instead it was the amount of long, time-consuming lines that customers had to partake in just to get food or drinks.

As seen in the image below, these lines were long and plentiful – and you know something is taking forever when you see people sitting on the floor instead of standing. This is a general clue to signify that a queue goes far beyond the norm. So, what happened?

Well, firstly it doesn’t help that this festival was free. Obviously, this is a good thing and should be encouraged. However, it also means that you’re going to get hordes of people turning up. Secondly, there is some context. Not everyone queued for over an hour. Instead, the savvy Washingtonians found stalls with shorter lines, with some only being ten minutes in length.

Incredibly, one social media user even wrote: “Sounds like it really depended on your timing and which stand you went to, but I can assure you I waited 1.5 hours for my 3 chicken skewers and they were pretty good” which shows just how long the lines were. Let’s hope the food was worth it.

If anything, this serves as an example that sometimes it’s nobody’s fault other than the masses. If people are happy to queue then it’s ultimately on them.