Facility layout planning and setup

It is important to plan the facility layout in detail, communicating with the facility staff to ensure plans are feasible. Things to watch out for:

• Room capacity. Ensure rooms are large enough to legally seat the expected number of attendants. Note that capacity varies depending on whether a room is arranged with theater-style seating or round table seating. The facility should make room capacity information readily available.
• Doorways. Pay attention to where doorways are located and how they will be used. The stage area should ideally be far away or opposite any used doorways.
• Columns and other barriers. Sometimes a facility room has columns or other obstacles that may not be obvious from a map. Be sure to visit the facility early to note these.
• Audio. The layout needs to be appropriate for placing speakers, an audio station, etc. Ensure that the conference audio team approves of the layout.
• Decorations. Have a rough idea of where decorations should go in the layout.

Floorplan items checklist:

• Stage.
• Lectern.
• Seating.
• Trophy display tables.
• Candidate display tables.
• Audio control station.
• Speakers.
• Contest administrator table.
• Water tables.
• Appetizer area.
• Registration desk.
• Credentials desk.
• Opportunity drawing area.
• Bookstore area.
• Contestant waiting area.
• Ballot counter area.
• Secure storage room.

The hotel gave us this original floorplan map, with room capacity information:

We brought a scale copy to planning meetings and planned where tables and stage risers should be placed:

Once the plan began to stabilize, we created digital maps to post on the planning website and share with hotel staff. We also gave the hotel a schedule of when things needed to be set up in specific configurations.

Here is how the stage turned out. Note the steel pole structure behind the stage, for displaying banners. This we rented from the hotel. Also note the lectern, speakers, and the big timer light.

Audio control station with Umesh, our audio guru. Note that the station is elevated to ensure a line of sight between wireless microphones and their receivers at the station.

Candidate displays:

Suggestions for improvement

• Be sure to have a 1-2 tables near the back of the contest room reserved for administrators (event chairs, contest chairs, chief judges, etc.)
• Have a trophy display table near the front of the contest room.
• After having selected the facility and booked its rooms for specific times, we realized some of the rooms might not have enough capacity. Later, when we tried to switch some rooms, the hotel informed us that we could not have certain rooms at certain times -- so we were forced to revise the conference schedule. So it's important to discuss the conference layout, schedule, and headcount, in broad terms, when booking the venue. The facility chair should be onboard early to coordinate this, and should accompany the DG for contract signing.
• Historically we have had problems with too little food being served, whereas at the Spring 2007 conference we had too much food available (and too little water)! Since having too little food is unacceptable and having too much is costly, this is an area where it is valuable for the facilities chair to do some serious fine tuning.
• During some of our contests, we had major problems with "noise pollution" from amplified sound in neighboring events. Try to secure a conference venue with good insulation or with no simultaneously-scheduled events.
• Watch out for doorways that are in narrow hallways. It's best if all heavily-trafficked doorways open to a wider space such as a foyer.
• Ensure that water is readily available and replentished, inside the rooms where contests are held. Otherwise, people will be coming in and out looking for water.
• Even if the venue's address is prominently mentioned on flyers and promotional websites, some people will inevitably get lost. Post a clear set of directions to the venue.
• Test the doors to see how much noise they make when they latch closed. Have a plan for dampening the noise. (In our conference, we taped towels around the tops of the doors during the contests.)