# Digital signage for waiting rooms: queue numbers that never go stale > Canonical HTML: https://screenrig.ai/use-cases/waiting-rooms Digital signage for waiting rooms shows which ticket is being served, how long the lines are and when the desk is open. The hard part is what the screen does when the desk's system goes quiet, so your AI agent sets it to clear the numbers instead of showing old ones. screenRIG is free. Pay only if you want more. Updated October 27, 2026. > **You:** Riverside Clinic's waiting-room TV should show the ticket now being served and the current waits. The front desk calls tickets from their own queue system. Whenever they call one, put it on the screen. If we stop hearing from the queue for two minutes, take the numbers off the screen rather than leave an old one up. Keep the opening hours on the screen the whole time. > > **Agent:** All set. The TV loops three pages: Now serving, current waits and opening hours. A called ticket goes up within seconds. If two minutes pass with nothing from the queue, the numbers come off and the opening hours stay. ## A ticket is called The first page shows the ticket being called and the last few before it. Tickets are a letter and a number, so no personal data is involved. Riverside Clinic is a made-up clinic, and its tickets, counters and waits are demo content. The run is real: 26 October 2026, on screenRIG's test environment, with the pictures drawn by the Player (the screenRIG app on the screen) in a browser window. > **You:** The desk called A044 at counter 1. > > **Agent:** A044 is on the screen at counter 1, marked "Just called". The earlier calls moved down the list, and the screen shows 5 waiting, about 9 minutes. ![The waiting-room screen: Now serving A044 at counter 1, marked Just called, with the earlier calls listed and 5 waiting, about 9 min](https://screenrig.ai/static-resources/images/screenshots/landing/venues-waiting-rooms-call-1df01c73.webp) *A few seconds later: A044, counter 1, marked Just called. The earlier calls move down the list.* The desk's own queue system stays in charge of every number. It can tell your agent, or a small script on the desk's side can write the calls to the screen by itself. The [headless page](https://screenrig.ai/headless-digital-signage.md) records one doing exactly that. ## Waits from the desk The second page shows the lines the desk reports on: walk-in, prescription pickup, lab check-in and vaccinations. A closed line says Closed instead of a number. Waits are shown only when someone supplies them. With no approved source, the page is simply not in the loop. ![The Current waits page: walk-in 25 min, prescription pickup 6 min, lab check-in 14 min and vaccinations closed, with colour-coded bars](https://screenrig.ai/static-resources/images/screenshots/landing/venues-waiting-rooms-waits-5abc8507.webp) *The waits page, with the desk's own footnote: estimates updated every 10 minutes.* ## When the queue goes quiet A queue screen that keeps showing A044 after the desk's system has died is worse than no screen. So every number your agent puts up expires after two minutes unless it is refreshed. The numbers pages then leave the loop on their own, and one page never leaves: the opening hours, so something is always on the screen. > **Agent:** I also tested the quiet case. Two minutes after my last update the numbers were gone, and the screen showed only the opening hours: Open, closes 22:00, with Thursday's staff training noted. > > **You:** And when the desk comes back? > > **Agent:** The next update brings the pages back by itself. I sent the queue and the waits again, and about eight seconds later both pages were back in the loop. Nothing was republished. ![The waiting-room screen with only the Open page: Riverside Clinic, Open, closes 22:00, and the week's hours with a staff training exception on Thursday](https://screenrig.ai/static-resources/images/screenshots/landing/venues-waiting-rooms-quiet-e94e744a.webp) *A few seconds after the expiry: the queue and waits pages have left the loop, and the hours remain.* ## What belongs on a waiting-room screen - **Tickets, not people.** Show letters and numbers. Names, reasons for a visit and anything from a record stay in the systems built for them. Your agent only receives the numbers you give it. - **Waits from a source.** Show an estimate only when the desk's own system produces it. Otherwise leave the page out and let the hours page say when the desk is open. - **One message per page.** Read each page from the farthest seat. The queue page works because it has one number in letters you can read across the room. ## Waiting-room signage questions ### Does screenRIG run my queue? No. Your queue system calls the tickets. screenRIG shows what it reports. ### What do visitors see when the clinic is closed? The queue and waits pages play only during opening hours, so after closing the loop is the hours page, which says Closed and when the desk opens. ### How many screens can show the same queue? Every screen you put it on. Screens that show the same queue show the same numbers. ## Try it on one waiting-room TV [Start free](https://screenrig.ai/docs/start.md), pair the TV and ask for the quiet rule first: numbers off after two minutes of silence. ## Related - [Quickstart: Digital Signage with Your AI Agent](https://screenrig.ai/docs/start.md): screenRIG is free. Pay only if you want more. Install the official plugin with your AI agent, then pair a Player and publish your first screen. - [Supported Players and Setup](https://screenrig.ai/docs/players.md): Install the screenRIG Player on your screen, pair it with your agent, and compare content types, streams and device controls by platform. - [Digital Signage App Library: 200+ Built-in Cards](https://screenrig.ai/docs/cards.md): Add live components to a playlist: menus, clocks, queues, scores, weather and gauges. Choose a card, set its properties and publish. - [Headless Digital Signage (API-First Screens)](https://screenrig.ai/headless-digital-signage.md): Headless digital signage: a pipeline writes to a TV through the API with no dashboard open. screenRIG is free. Pay only if you want more. [Start free](https://screenrig.ai/docs/start.md). screenRIG is free. Pay only if you want more.