Squaring the circle: creating room sets for connection

squaring the circle: An overhead photograph of a group of people sitting in a large circle with Leonardo de Vinci's "Vitruvian Man" superimposed at the centerMeeting planners typically default to squaring the circle when specifying room sets. They persist in seating attendees in long straight lines whenever possible, ignoring the benefits of curved and circular seating at their events. (See Paul Radde’s Seating Matters: State of the Art Seating Arrangements for more information.)

The architecture of assembly where curved theatre seating dominates, teaches us otherwise. And we all know that the most intimate and useful small group conversation and connection occurs around round tables. (Even though many of the rounds used at meetings are far too large.)

I’ve explained the importance of curved seating and large circle sets in detail in my book The Power of Participation (Chapter 13), so I won’t reiterate its value here. Instead, I’m going to answer a common dilemma faced by my clients: what to do when there isn’t enough room for large circle sets at a venue.

27 years of peer conferences

Circle sets are especially important for opening sessions such as The Three Questions. Circles allow everyone to see each other and minimize status differences due to seating position. Unfortunately, circle sets take up a lot of space compared to theatre seating. Though I don’t recommend it if you’re expecting any kind of meaningful activity, you can squeeze a few hundred people into a room that is large enough to hold a perfect circle of fifty chairs.

Because clients typically contract with a venue before engaging my services (don’t do that!), they frequently belatedly discover that they haven’t reserved enough space for maximally participative sessions.

Set in ovals

Sometimes there are enough rooms to run multiple simultaneous opening Three Questions sessions, but some of them aren’t large enough to set as circles. When this happens, we can often set the smaller rooms in ovals rather than circles. Oval sets have the disadvantage that they imply greater status to the people at the narrow ends and centers of the long edges. This can be minimized by placing session staff, such as the facilitator, scribes, and timekeeper in these positions.

A common mistake is to set the long edges of such oval chair layouts as straight lines. Instead, maintain a gentle curve between all chairs to maximize the visibility of every participant.

Run The Three Questions using a theatre set!

If space is tight, it’s possible to run The Three Questions in a curved theatre set. The details are in my book Event Crowdsourcing: Creating Meetings People Actually Want and Need. Briefly, you use staff ushers to bring individual participants to the front of the set where they share their answers facing the entire group.

This set does not provide the same level of intimacy and connection as circle sharing. But it is a usable alternative when space is limited.

Set breakout rooms in circles

There’s no single room set that’s optimum for peer sessions breakout rooms. Any kind of participatory group work, such as facilitated discussions, works best in circle seating. However, some peer sessions may be led by one or more people with expert knowledge or experience who do most of the talking.

My recommendation is to set up all breakout rooms with circle seating before the first set of peer sessions. This ensures that discussion formats won’t be hampered by a broadcast-style set. If participants in a broadcast-style session feel the need, they will rearrange the chairs themselves to face the session leaders.

Avoid squaring the circle

Although circle room sets are the best choice for many group activities, you’ll sometimes need to find alternatives. I hope these suggestions help!

Right and wrong ways to set theater seating

There are right and wrong ways to set theater seating.

Whenever I see a room set that fights the body, my neck and hips start to ache in sympathy. People shouldn’t have to keep themselves twisted constantly in one direction while seated at an event. Yet we make our attendees do this all the time.

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One time, I visited Boston’s Mother Church Extension of The First Church of Christ, Scientist, and shot this panorama of the magnificent 3,000+ seat sanctuary. Designed more than a century ago, the theater seating here is done right. Every seat faces the key focal point in the room: the world’s eighth-largest pipe organ, with a total of 13,295 pipes. Short pews, interspersed with plentiful aisles, make it easy for worshipers to get to and from their seats.

Doing theater seating wrong

Compare the above great design with these contemporary auditoria and event seatings.

Salle Henri Dutilleux auditorium 2012 8642470837_45841d105a_z
Salle Henri Dutilleux auditorium, completed in 2012

Here’s a concert auditorium in Amiens, France. Pity the concertgoers sitting in the side wall seats who have to turn their heads 30-45 degrees to see the stage. The folks in the seats on the left and right-hand sides of the front-facing seats don’t fare much better. Notice also the long, unbroken center rows of seats—not much fun to get out of during intermission.

 

National Exhibition Center
National Exhibition Center

This concert seating set in Birmingham, England, would work well if the stall seating (red center seats) was where the action was taking place. But no, everyone’s supposed to be watching the stage at the far end! Those poor spectators in the tiered seats, sitting at right angles to the action. I don’t know if the tiered seating is removable—if it is it would be much better to set the stage on the long edge of the room and curve the seating around it.

right and wrong ways to set theater seating: photograph of the Poetry Foundation auditorium

Finally, here’s the Poetry Foundation auditorium in Chicago. An attractive room, but why are the chairs set in straight lines? Curve them around the poet for a much more intimate atmosphere.

 

 

Doing theater seating right

There are right and wrong ways to set theater seating, and it doesn’t take much to get it right. Face each chair towards the presentation; set to the long side of the room; flare aisles off-center front at 45 degrees; and cut single chair access lanes to keep unbroken rows short. Do it! It’s not rocket science and your attendees will thank you!

Photo attributions: Adrian Segar and Flickr users byb64, kaptainkobold, and jamesbondsv.