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Room Setup
Tips
Tips to Enhance the
Audience's Experience
Ruben has compiled a
list of tools to help you achieve maximum audience response. Please use them
to add to the experience your audience receives from your event.
THE BEST SEAT IN THE HOUSE
1. Avoid a center
aisle. The best seats in the house-directly in front of the speaker- are
often wasted in a large empty aisle. The speaker is forced to run stage
left, stage right, to address a "divided" audience. Use two
smaller side aisles on either side of center.
2. Keep the
audience responding as a group.
Keep the front row as close to the stage as is comfortable.
Reduce the distance between the speaker and participants in the last row.
If the room is rectangular, set the stage in the center of the long wall.
Cut single-chair access lanes into long rows every sixth chair.
3. Rope off the
back 10 rows until ten minutes into the presentation. Have a door host
direct participants to take the seats up front.
4. Curve or angle
your seating.
Straight rows do not max a room. Curved seating exceeds straight row
capacity by 26%.
Audience response to humor increases when individuals can see each other.
Straight row seating requires additional concentration to absorb the
message. (Turning the neck 15 degrees restricts blood flow to the brain,
limiting learning. End-row participants must turn their necks 80 degrees
or more!)
5. Stagger the
chairs. Eliminate audiences twisting, bobbing and craning to see
around the head in front of them.
6. Do not overset
the room. If you are planning on 200 people, set the room for 180 not
250. Stack extra chairs at the back of the room. Otherwise, the front rows
will be empty. Better to have every seat taken than large empty spots
throughout the audience.
7. If you know some
attendees will be in wheelchairs, you might remove a few chairs at the
ends of the rows near the front, to provide space for them to wheel their
chairs to the ends of these aisles. This allows for easy entry/exit, and
it’s nice change for those often relegated to the back row in an
audience. (If they are placed in the front row, it may be difficult for
others to see over them.)
8. If side or back
doors close loudly, please have a door stop handy or tape the lock to
avoid noisy distractions.
AUDIO
VISUAL
9. The most overlooked
(and damaging) glitch – ceiling lights which shine directly on the screen
and wash out the visuals. After 5 minutes of eye strain, the audience gives
up even trying to follow along. The solution is not to dim all the
lights, which will throw your speaker in the shadows. Have the hotel
remove the offending lights that shine directly above the screen.
10. Use an additional
light source on the presenter. Studies have proven that when an audience
cannot see the presenter clearly, they also believe they cannot hear him or
her clearly!
11. The eye follows
movement, not sound. If photos are to be taken, avoid doing so during the
first fifteen minutes of the presentation. It will be too much of
distraction for both your audience and speaker. Try and take a posed
"action" shot during the break.
Have you ever suffered
along with a speaker through microphone feedback or competing with a Dixieland
band in the room next door? Where was
your attention focused, and what do you remember of the speaker's message?
12. Use your own
speaker system, rather than the speakers in the room ceiling. You will get
much higher quality sound. If you are in a divided ballroom, make sure
that whoever is recording next door is not patched into your system.
13. If your group is
large, use speakers in the front, middle and rear of the audience.
14. If recording,
put microphones in the audience to pick up audience response.
15. When video
taping, use BetaSP format rather than VHS.
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