A conference is governed by various rules, including the arrangement of seating for participants at the table. The layout of the chairs must ensure comfort in access to the speaker and the screen.
It should be noted that conferences take different forms, to which the arrangement of chairs and tables in the room must be adapted. Also, remember that not every room allows all types of conference table layouts, so it is always worth seeing it before deciding on a choice.
A training or workshop conference differs from the classic one consisting only of listening and observing the speaker's presentation. First, we need to answer the question of how many people will participate in the conference. Next, the nature of the planned meeting must be considered. Each participant must be guaranteed good visibility, freedom of movement, and workspace, for example, for taking notes.
For the most classic form of conference, the best layout is a cinema/theater style consisting of rows of chairs one behind the other, facing the speaker and the presentation screen. In the case of a workshop format, the island arrangement of conference tables is considered the best. This can take the form of banquet-style round tables or a classroom setup with desks and chairs. Tables should be spaced apart so that participants can work comfortably.
However, the banquet layout is more often chosen for organizing shows or award ceremonies than for a classic conference. On the other hand, the classroom table setup works well when participants will use additional equipment such as laptops during the conference. The island table layout is chosen when the assumption is that participants will work in smaller subgroups using various materials requiring space on the table. What other conference table layouts can we consider?
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The room size alone is not enough to decide on the table layout. The room may be narrow, irregularly shaped, have podiums, slants, or pillars. All this should be considered when deciding on the appropriate room and table layout. Any structural obstacles such as pillars may make arranging tables in a U-shape impossible. The U-shape is a good layout for training or smaller conferences, allowing not only good visibility for all but also communication among participants or with the speaker.
For a smaller number of participants, a large rectangular or oval conference table is also a good solution, allowing communication and joint work. However, we can decide on such an arrangement only if we do not plan to display anything on the screen. Some participants would then have trouble accessing the screen. In the case of a large number of participants, the cinema layout of tables works best. What else should be known about conference table layout?
Analyzing the possibilities of the room allows not only to determine how many participants can attend the event but also to adapt the room layout. Room capacity is easiest to calculate in the case of a classic cinema layout. You can use a simple ratio that one participant should have one square meter of space. For other table layouts in a conference, calculating room capacity is a bit more difficult.
It is assumed that, in the classroom arrangement of tables and chairs, the seating capacity in the same room is 60% of the cinema arrangement. This fact alone shows that this layout is suitable for much smaller conferences. The U-shape table layout offers even less capacity, only about 45% of the cinema layout. Round tables arranged banquet-style with proper spacing allow seating only 40% of the participants accommodated by the cinema layout.
Calculating room capacity also includes space for the speaker, a table and chair for them, and an area for the multimedia screen. If the facility where the conference is held provides only the room without additional space, then the space for coffee breaks, a table with drinks and snacks must also be included in the room capacity. Therefore, an area calculator is often not enough, and each conference venue under consideration should be visited and even measured.
