A meal and a stage in the same hour
Conference lunches with a keynote, awards dinners, sales kick-offs. This is the layout's home ground.
Seating style
Cabaret Seating Style
Cabaret seating is round tables with a bite taken out of them. Chairs go around roughly two thirds of each table and the arc facing the stage is left empty, so nobody spends the presentation looking over their shoulder.
It is the layout that solves the conference lunch problem, and it is the most expensive layout per head in common use. Both of those facts follow from the same empty arc.
By Rosa Haye, founder of RH Seating StudioLast updated
What cabaret seating is
Take a standard banquet round. Remove the chairs on the side facing the stage. What is left is cabaret - sometimes called crescent or half-moon seating, and occasionally sold by venues as "crescent rounds", which is the same thing at a higher price.
The people who remain are arranged in an arc around the far side of the table, all of them facing the front of the room within a comfortable head turn. They have a surface for food, notes and a laptop, and they can still talk to the four people nearest them between sessions.
The empty arc is not wasted. It is where service happens, and it is why cabaret rooms clear plates faster than banquet rooms of the same size.
Diagram and dimensions
The two table sizes that matter are the 60-inch round and the 72-inch round, because those are what venues own. A 66-inch exists and is rare enough to ignore when planning.
Chair spacing works out at roughly 24 inches of table circumference per person. A 60-inch round has about 188 inches of circumference, of which you are using two thirds - about 125 inches, or five to six chairs. Venues will tell you six fits, and six does fit.
| Table | Cabaret | Full banquet | Lost per table |
|---|---|---|---|
| 60-inch round | 5 to 6 | 8 to 10 | 3 to 4 |
| 66-inch round | 6 to 7 | 9 to 10 | 3 |
| 72-inch round | 7 to 8 | 10 to 12 | 3 to 4 |
Leave 54 inches between chair backs on adjacent tables. Cabaret rooms feel more generous than banquet rooms at the same spacing because the empty arcs line up into informal walkways.
Capacity per table and per room
Per room, cabaret runs about 15 to 20 square feet per person including aisles and service space. A 2,000 square foot function room seats roughly 100 to 130 in cabaret, against 130 to 165 in banquet rounds and 170 to 250 theatre style.
The planning mistake is quoting the venue's theatre capacity to a client and then setting cabaret. A room sold as holding 250 will seat about 110 in cabaret, and that conversation is much better had at the contract stage.
Work backwards instead. Take your confirmed number, divide by the per-table figure above, add one spare table, and check the resulting table count against the usable floor area rather than the total.
Cabaret vs banquet rounds
These are the same tables set two ways, and the choice comes down to one question: is there something at the front of the room that people are meant to watch?
If yes, cabaret, and accept the capacity cost. If no, banquet rounds and take the extra thirty percent.
| Cabaret | Banquet | |
|---|---|---|
| Per 60-inch round | 5 to 6 | 8 to 10 |
| Sightline to stage | Every seat | A quarter of the room turns around |
| Conversation | Four to five neighbors | Whole table |
| Service speed | Faster, open arc | Slower, reach between chairs |
| Sq ft per person | 15 to 20 | 12 to 15 |
| Use for | Conference meals, awards with a stage | Dinners, galas, receptions |
When to use it
Cabaret earns its capacity cost in exactly three situations, and is a waste of floor area outside them.
Table discussion between sessions
Anything where delegates work in groups and then turn back to the front. Cabaret switches between the two modes without moving furniture.
Long days
A table surface makes a six-hour programme survivable in a way theatre seating does not.
Not for
A short keynote with no food. Use theatre and seat twice as many people.
Setting the room in cabaret
This is the sequence a venue team actually works in, and doing it in this order avoids the most common outcome: a room that is set beautifully and has one table too many in it.
01Mark the stage and the sightline
Set the stage or screen first and stand where the furthest table will go. If you cannot read the screen from there, the room is too deep for the AV, and no seating layout fixes that.
02Set the perimeter walkway
Tape or mark 42 inches all the way around the room. Nothing goes inside it, including the trestle tables that always appear during setup.
03Place tables from the front
Work back from the stage, keeping 54 inches between chair backs. Stagger alternate rows so each table looks between the two in front rather than at them.
04Set the chairs to the arc
Chairs go on the far side only, spanning roughly 240 degrees. The 120 degrees facing the stage stays empty on every single table, including the ones at the back where it feels unnecessary.
05Walk it before you dress it
Walk the service route and the exit route with a tray. If you have to turn sideways, the spacing is wrong, and it is much cheaper to find out before the linen goes on.
Build a cabaret layout free
Drawing cabaret to scale is worth ten minutes because the table count is rarely what people estimate. Place your rounds at real dimensions in the free seating chart maker, seat your actual list, and the count is settled before you call the venue.
The same plan produces the guest-facing page, so delegates can scan a code and find their table instead of queueing at a printed list.
Frequently asked questions
How many people fit at a cabaret table?
Five to six at a 60-inch round and seven to eight at a 72-inch round. That is roughly two thirds of what the same table seats at full banquet, because the stage-facing arc is left empty.
What is the difference between cabaret and crescent seating?
Nothing. Crescent, half-moon and cabaret all describe round tables with the stage-facing arc left clear. Venues use the terms interchangeably.
How much space do I need between cabaret tables?
54 inches between chair backs on adjacent tables is the working figure. Cabaret rooms feel roomier than that number suggests because the empty arcs line up into informal walkways.
Is cabaret seating worth losing the capacity?
Only if there is something at the front of the room people are meant to watch. If there is not, set banquet rounds and take the extra 30 percent of capacity.
Can I mix cabaret and banquet tables in one room?
You can, and it is a reasonable answer when a room is tight: cabaret at the front where sightlines matter, full rounds at the back where people are further from the stage anyway. It looks deliberate as long as the transition happens on a clean row.
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