Meeting Room Layout

Choosing a layout by meeting type

The question that decides it is not headcount, it is direction of attention. If everyone is attending to one person or one screen, you want rows or an arc. If they are attending to each other, you want a shape with a hole in the middle.

Headcount then narrows it to one or two options, because most of these layouts have a ceiling above which they simply stop working.

Boardroom

One rectangular table, chairs on both long sides and one at each end. Allow 30 inches of table edge per person and 36 inches of pull-back behind each chair, plus a route past if anyone needs to leave mid-meeting.

It seats 8 to 20 and does not scale past that: at 24 people the table is 12 feet long and the ends cannot hear each other. It is also awkward with a screen, because half the room has to turn.

U-shape

Three runs of tables in an open U with the screen at the open end. 16 to 25 people, 24 to 30 inches of edge each, and a minimum of 6 feet across the inside so the facilitator can walk in.

The best layout in this list for a workshop, and the worst per square foot. Full dimensions on U-shape seating.

Hollow square

A closed rectangle of tables with an empty center. It takes the U up to about 40 people by using the fourth side, and it gives up having a front of the room to do it.

Use it when the meeting is a discussion between peers with no presenter. Avoid it whenever there is a screen, because a quarter of the room will be facing away from it.

Classroom

Rows of narrow tables facing the front, chairs on one side. Two per 6-foot table, 42 inches between rows. It is the only layout in this list that stays comfortable for a full day.

Costs about 20 square feet per person, roughly double theatre. Full detail on classroom style seating.

Theatre

Chairs in rows, no tables, 8 to 12 square feet per person. The only choice above about 150 people in a flat room, and a poor one below 50.

Aisle width and seats between aisles are fire code questions rather than preferences - see theatre style seating.

Cabaret

Round tables with the screen-facing arc left empty. Six to a 60-inch round, and the only layout here that handles food and a presentation in the same session.

Expensive per head at 15 to 20 square feet per person, and worth it when lunch is in the room. See cabaret seating.

Capacity per room size

Figures below assume a rectangular room with one screen wall, a 42-inch perimeter walkway, and no pillars. Subtract for anything the room actually has in it.

AV and sightline considerations

Three rules that decide whether a layout works in practice, all of them cheap to check and expensive to discover late.

First, the back row test: stand where the last seat will be and read the smallest text on the actual deck. If you cannot, the room is too deep for that screen and no layout fixes it.

Second, the 45-degree rule: no seat should have to turn more than about 45 degrees from its natural facing to see the screen. This is what rules out hollow square and boardroom for presentations, and what cabaret exists to satisfy.

Third, run power down aisles rather than across them, and tape everything. A cable across a 44-inch aisle is both a trip hazard and, at any real capacity, an egress problem.

Set the meeting room in this order

1. 01Choose the direction of attention

   Decide whether people primarily face one presenter or one another. That removes half the layout options before room capacity enters the discussion.

2. 02Mark fixed AV and clear routes

   Place screens, stage, doors, accessible routes, aisles, power and camera positions before tables and chairs. Space reserved afterwards is always the first space squeezed.

3. 03Fit the working capacity

   Use occupied chair and table footprints rather than a venue maximum. Keep a few places out of the first pass so mobility needs and late changes do not collapse an aisle.

4. 04Test the back and worst-angle seats

   Read the smallest slide from the back row and sit in the seat with the sharpest screen angle. If either fails, change the layout rather than asking the audience to compensate.

5. 05Print the setup sheet and walk it

   Give the venue one current setup sheet, then walk every route after the furniture is placed and before cables, bags and catering add new obstacles.

Plan yours free

Every layout on this page can be drawn to scale, with the room's real dimensions and the tables the venue actually owns, in the free seating chart maker. For named seats - which some board and training sessions want - the same plan produces a searchable guest page.