Take a Good Book and Get in Line

Last weekend the lines were as long as the faces outside the Los Angeles Convention Center, where the “America’s Smithsonian” exhibit proved to be too much of a good thing. Visitors had to wait hours to obtain a ticket, get inside the Convention Center and make their way to Abraham Lincoln’s stovepipe hat or any of the 350 other objects on display. The crush itself was historic.

Now, the organizers insist, they have got their act together. They have eliminated the sale of advance tickets. From now until the show closes March 7, all tickets must be picked up at the Convention Center for entrance that day. The number of tickets and the rate of entry will be controlled to avoid overcrowding in the exhibit areas. There is no charge. Tickets can be obtained beginning at 9 a.m.

The organizers recommend visiting the show on weekday afternoons to avoid the weekend crowds and large numbers of schoolchildren, 45,000 of whom already are booked during morning hours Mondays through Thursdays.

A minor rearrangement in the exhibit area also promises to speed the flow of visitors. Lincoln’s hat and the Mercury space capsule have been removed from their gallery positions and placed in a corridor where they will cause less of a bottleneck.

Even so, it’s almost sure that weekend visitors will face delays. Remember the throngs at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s King Tut exhibit in 1978 and the French Impressionist show in 1984? Like those, this show is splendid, and sometimes you just have to wait for a good thing.