Staging Meetings in a Large Room by Mike Vogas

Here are some ideas for more effective meetings. Staging an event in a banquet hall or in a manufacturing plant can be tough because of poor sightlines, weak lighting, bad audio and distractions. Here’s how to deal with difficult sight considerations you’ll find in many hotels and factories. Audio is important too, but that’s another topic.

Arrange the stage area without windows behind it. Beating the power of sunlight is a losing battle. Consider where the projector must be in relation to the screen and make the rest of the meeting work around this limitation. The projector will often require the overhead lights off. Test them in advance. Vapor lamps won’t come back on without a lengthy warm up. Putting the podium next to the screen helps unify all of the messages given. It requires the speaker to turn and look at the screen if they’re not working off a laptop on the podium, so keep that in mind when preparing audio support.Thinking through your meeting on paper is the way to discover problems early. Draw an overhead view of the room to scale. Use ½ or ¼ of an inch to a foot. If you don’t know how far from the screen the projector must be, experiment and find out, before the rest of the plan comes together. Cramming all the people you can into a room and then calling an AV company is not the way to go. Lay out your seating aisles to conserve the best viewing angles. Most AV screens produce better images when viewed straight on. The farther from the 90 degree angle to the screen, the weaker the image. Good sightlines for the audience will result if you can elevate the action in front of them.

Draw a side view of the room using the same scale as the overhead view. Sightlines in chairs are figured at 3’6’’ from the floor. When you draw the stage, podium, presenter and screen to scale, you will discover how good or bad the viewing is before the lights go out.Even if you rely on an AV company or banquet manager for your room set up, knowing what to look for will help you produce a better meeting.