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The Best Seats in the House Are Not There The area directly in front of the speaker in these straight-row sets-the only decent seats facing the presentation directly-aren't set. Typically, this is a large, energy draining center aisle. You are better off, even in a straight-row set, with a straight-row center section right in front of you, and an aisle in between each outer seating section. Meanwhile, Back at the Presentation: You're the Expert A straight-row arrangement announces that you are the only source of important input in the room, the only stimulus worth attending to. You are clearly delineated as the authority. That may have been the intention in Puritan churches where the sinners focused on the pulpit for salvation. Most of your audiences will probably not have the same motivation to watch you-or the feather on the nose should they snooze. If there is any residual resentment in your audience members to the 12 to 16 years they were immobilized, silenced and intimidated in an educational system, you are more likely to be the recipient of that resentment when they see the room set. They will refer to you as the "teacher" and the meeting space as a "classroom." Product Sales Suffer as Well Orvel Ray Wilson, of The Guerilla Group Inc., noted a 10 to 20 percent increase in back-of-the- room product sales as a result of curving the table configuration in his classroom sets. Audience dynamics increased by 300 percent with curved-row seating. Wilson had attended my presentation on "Seating: The Hidden Dimension in Presentation Dynamics" at the Irvine Workshop. When I spoke with him a year later, he was pleased about the techniques, but thoroughly frustrated with meeting facility resistance or inability to set the room as he requested. Similar reports from meeting professionals led me to approach major hotel chains to offer them training in Audience-Centered Seating principles. Market-Driven Facilities: Ask and They Will Sell It Numerous national vice presidents of marketing of major hotel chains informed me that they are not interested in taking the lead in providing innovative and optimal seating. They claim to be market-driven, fully capable of providing the set requested by the meeting planner. They are experiencing a seller's market in which they feel little need to scramble for business. That is where the speaker needs to take the initiative. We are the market. And we need to work in partnership with the meeting professional and the meeting facility to get the optimal presentation circumstances. You have to be specific and detailed in your request of a room set from the meeting planner. Unless you make a request, you may not be asked for your preference. Be prepared to deal with the inertia or resistance you encounter from the beginning and follow through to ensure you get what you want. If you do not get satisfaction from a meeting facil- ity, I would be happy to track the service afforded by these facilities. Let me know. Use the Guest Benefit Angle This is the hospitality industry. Assure the facilities that "their guests would benefit from this arrangement," says Steve Water- house, who sits the housemen on the outside chair of the front row. He asks them how much they would pay to sit in that seat for an hour. Quickly converted, the housemen oblige with the curved-row sets Waterhouse requests. Thrival.com |