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Meeting Facility: An Oxymoron? A meeting is supposed to convene people, bringing them together faceto-face for a common purpose. If you have straight rows, you don't have a meeting. People simply cannot see each other. They would be better off in their home office on a satellite TV hookup. At least then they would see each other face-to-face. What you do have with straight-row seating is a collective assemblage, similar to people who happen to show up in a train station at the same time. A facility is supposed to assist, facilitate or "make easy" whatever the function. Straight rows do quite the contrary. But erudite discussion of basic institutional purpose will only annoy the meeting space staff, so be specific, detailed and firm in your request. You are the customer. And your request benefits the ultimate customer: your audience member. "We're Setting for the Last Presentation" When a breakout room is to be used throughout the day for concurrents, many planners will provide a standard straight-row set, often claiming that it is for the presenter at the end ofthe day. Just as often, that presenter has made no such request, nor even been asked for room specs. Your request may be turned down on that basis, even though the last presenter has not even been booked yet. Ask to get in touch with the last presenter. Then the two of you work out a compromise. Most often, another presenter doesn't have a clue about the best set and will request a standard setup because he or she is supposed to 'pick one." Inform that presenter about the benefits of your curved-row set and then make a joint request of the meeting professional. Overturning an Erroneous Myth: Straight Rows Do Not Max the Room Meeting professionals inform me that they are, in fact, "control freaks." It comes with the job. They want assurances that everything on their checklist is done. Like many professionals who provide services, attention is drawn to them only when something falls through. That is not the attention they want. They are low risk takers. And maxing the room is one of their fall-back positions. A late surge in registrations, expensive meeting space, unpredictable attendance; each and all promote turning over the room set to the facility and asking them to "max the room." That means getting the highest chair count into that presentation space. That is a sure way to CYA: cover your anatomy. (Note also that once the chairs are set in place, no one seems concerned whether they are accessible, or whether anyone ultimately sits in them. Yet, a chair is not a seat until someone is in it.) Nearly everyone in the meet- ings industry worldwide mis- takenly and unquestioningly maintains that straight-row sets will accomplish maximum space utilization. This is the belief at the bottom of the straight-row mind-set. And it is simply untrue. In every room I have set in a meeting facility to date, using the six AudienceCentered Seating principles and fine tuning, especially that of curving the rows, we have met or exceeded the capacity listed for traditional straightrow theater style. Oops! In fact, I may have contributed to that unfortunate belief. I was in error in my June 1994 article for Professional Speaker -"Room Setup Advantages with 'State of the Art' Seating" in stating that "at most you give up six seats per hundred, or 6 percent. So if you plan space for 636 theater style, you can accommodate 600 with semicircular seating." (P. 9.) That percentage was an overly conservative figure determined by setting a room capped by a fire code. In a March conference held at the Minneapolis Hilton (the 1995 NSA Convention site) we exceeded the straight-row capacity in breakout rooms by 26 percent. And at Grand Traverse Resort in Michigan, we comfortably and safely packed 73 chairs in curved rows in rooms that could only accommodate 67 in straight rows. Capacity alone makes curved rows appealing. So here are the six principles we utilized in setting those rooms. Thrival.com |