Each time when the workshop and training rooms are set up by the hosts, it appears that the trainer or facilitator is supposed to perform at the short side of the room. There you mostly find the projection screen and the ‘teacher table’….
However, I always want to re-set the room in a way to turn the positioning of the participants to make them face the long side of the room instead.
This has great advantages in a way that the long side of the room provides much more wall space for the visualisation, brings the participants closer to the wall making it easier for them to read the cards and flips in front and enables more direct interaction with the trainer / facilitator.
Also as you often find windows at one of the long side of the room and a wall at the opposite long wall, the lighting on the wall and the visualisation products is much better being direct from behind the participants (at times of doubt you as trainer / facilitator can get inspiration by watching the world outside).
Moreover, if you place the participants facing the long side automatically you design the table setting in a U-shape. In that way participants can see and communicate with each other and with the trainer / facilitator more easier.
By standing very central in the middle of the room the trainer / facilitator has much better contact with each of the participants so I don’t know why rooms are always set up differently. Who invented this? Who thought that the ‘high table’ should be at the short side? Isn’t it obvious that those sitting at the back of the room can’t follow what is happening at the front far away?
Why even modern meeting / training rooms are still designed it such a traditional way?
I find this fascinating and maybe someone has an answer …
I am sure there are thousands of anecdotes on ‘venues’ around and I invite you to share your best.
Once I had to facilitate a group of 35 participants in a workshop in the Ministry of Finance in Paris and was given a room without windows of 3 meters wide and 25 meters long …. with lights only directed on the one long fixed table in the middle and me having to stand right at the end … As I thought this not being ‘a good idea’, I ran around on the outside of the group to grab the attention of all participants and prevent them from getting a stiff neck watching only into one direction … Not so sure whether this workshop was a success …
If possible I send example pictures of the desired set-up to the client beforehand and I ask pictures from the client of the venue. It helped me a lot to not run into too much of a stress situation the evening before the start of the session… At least in that way I can prepare myself and think of alternative set-up designs.
Last week I facilitated a workshop at EIGE in Vilnius with some 30 people and we placed 6 participants around 5 tables that were placed in a half circle facing the long wall. People were ‘advised’ to sit at a different table after each break. Group discussions were quite easy, lively and all the time meeting different people. A great networking tool as was commented.
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