Imagine you’re about to a seminar. And let’s assume you don’t know how many people are going to turn up. How will you set up the room, for an unknown number of participants?
The answer is incredibly simple, but the wrong move could make the difference between a lively atmosphere or a dull one.
Here’s how you set up the room
Put five chairs right in front of you
I assume that you’re not going to have hundreds of people coming to your seminar (especially when you’re just starting up). Sometimes, even getting ten people is a tricky task. But about five people always turn up, no matter what the weather conditions. Well, set up the room for five people.
When these five people walk in the room, where are they going to sit?
Why in the five seats you’ve allocated for them. And then of course, the sixth person may enter the room. Well, don’t panic. Just get the sixth chair, and place it alongside the five. And if the seventh person enters, you continue placing chairs.
What rookies do (and where they goof up)
They fill the room with twenty five or forty chairs. And people being people act according to their personality. Some of them will plonk themselves in the front row. Some of them will sit at the back. And some in the middle. So suddenly, you’ve got these great yawning gaps all over the place, that you just don’t need.
It then becomes a pain to get the audience to move up front, and what’s more obvious, is that about forty people were called, but just five turned up.
Much better to have five seats and add more as you go along. And if you do get forty people, great! If you get less than six, at least you can have a cozy session after all.
Don’t you agree?
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
I’m liking the book so far….thought I’d post here to ‘break the radio silence.’
Looking forward to more posts. Do you want a stream of questions to create answers/content from?
Paul
PS I thought I’d get a link in too!
Excellent suggestion. I had not thought to do this in the past. I will try and remember this for future presentations .
Another point about setting up the room. There are certain power points in the room or around the table. The most powerful point is where you can look at everyone without turning. No one is behind you. No one can enter the room behind you.
Scan the room and find the place where nothing can happen behind you and surprise you. Set your chairs up in that area with them facing you.
Jack
What a great suggestion!
The courses I organise on someone else’s behalf are always sold out in advance, but they’re planning on doing some others on a new subject and we don’t know how many will turn up so this would be a great way of organising the room.
Thanks!
Great idea, especially for a big seminar where you have a breakout session, and you have no idea how many will turn up!
KeynoteNut, huh? Keynote was the reason I switched to Mac
Well, so did I.
When someone took my presentation and made it better than I had done, then I knew that there was a world beyond my imagination. As a result, we don’t use PCs any more
yep totally agree with this nothing worse than having an empty room or gaps in the room