One of the important considerations for meetings which last more than 2 hours is the chairs.
Many venues save money on the chairs they buy and this can have a disastrous effect on your meeting if it is lengthy.
Always go and check the chairs at the venue and if necessary either ask them to hire in different chairs or go to a venue with decent chairs and make sure you tell the first venue why you have moved.
If chairs are uncomfortable, it creates tension and discomfort and that leads to conflict because people get short tempered.
Chairs and food have more influence on the outcome of a meeting than anything else – it’s what people remember a week later!
An interesting story
A new five star hotel opened and was of course heavily booked by groups wanting to try it. They had so many complaints about the chairs that after only three weeks of opening, they replaced every chair in their meeting rooms. The exercise cost them thousands of dollars. I heard later that the decision about the chairs originally had been left to a junior person who had no understanding of the importance of the decision and clearly neither did the person who delegated the task.
Caution
Some people require an ergonomic chair for a back condition or similar ailment. I don’t know the legal situation with this as I am not a lawyer, but morally, I believe that you need to provide for such requests.
Since it is nearly always the minute taker who organises the room, this post has also been placed under the Minute Taking category.
1 thought on “Check the chairs in the venue for longer meetings”
Great tip!
I didn’t go back for the second day of training once, in part because the chairs were so uncomfortable (I’m 5 feet 2 inches tall, and when your feet don’t touch the ground….it’s not good)
In my experience, when the chair is bad, having a table can really help (as it gives you something to lean on, which makes the chair more bearable).