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 people waiting 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 Nano out 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.
In New York, a company called SOLD Inc, (short for Same Ole Line Dudes) 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.
Started in Los Angeles by University of Southern California students, LineAngel was created to make it dead simple to hire a line sitter to wait for you in line for tickets, celebrity meet and greets, product releases, sneakers, or fashion sales. LineAngel's line sitters have waited in hundreds of lines for customers in Los Angeles and most notoriously at the San Diego Comic-Con where their app allowed convention goers to attend multiple headline events or even grab a bite to eat instead of waiting in line.