Designing a conference room is a complex and painstaking process in which knowledge and experience are the main guidelines. Often, the premises allocated for meeting and conference rooms vary greatly, as do the requirements of customers for equipment, so there is no universal solution. So each conference room equipment project is unique. Before analytics on www.BestCasinosInCanada.net site, Jeff Vertes held conferences on similar topics in conference halls
Let’s consider the main stages of equipping conference rooms, as well as important points and non-obvious subtleties.
Types of conference rooms and seating arrangements
There are many options for accommodating participants and spectators in conference rooms, but they are all special cases of five main options: classroom, theater, round table, negotiation and T-shaped. Let’s take a closer look at them:
- Classroom
This arrangement is suitable in cases where it is necessary to present material by one or more presenters to a medium group of listeners – for example, during training sessions, briefings, lectures, workshops, or press conferences.
- Theater
If a large number of listeners are expected during the speech, then this is the most appropriate way to arrange the room. Due to the absence of tables and other furniture, additional space will be freed up, and the participants’ chairs will be arranged in rows, allowing everyone to see and hear the speakers.
- Round table
The most suitable option for conducting negotiations on an equal footing. The emphasis of this arrangement is on the discussion component, as the participants are in the focus of each other’s attention. The table does not have to be round, it can be composite – in the shape of a square or rectangle.
- Negotiations
This option has proven itself in the meeting rooms of the largest companies around the world. It combines the convenience of communication between participants and work with visual materials. A long, elongated table allows you to place video panels on both sides of the table or fix them on the ceiling, dividing the meeting space in two.
- T-shaped arrangement
This seating arrangement is similar to negotiations, but it is more suitable for working meetings and planning sessions. The manager is at the head of the table and leads the brainstorming session, listens to reports from subordinates in turn, or speaks for himself.
Armed with knowledge of the seating options for participants and listeners, you can draw the first conclusions about the type of conference room that will suit you. As mentioned earlier, mixed styles are also possible.
What should you consider when designing your own hall?
Furnishing a conference room with furniture and equipment requires careful and accurate planning. The project of building a conference hall should be divided into stages, within which certain works will be carried out. All this will save you from such side tasks as laying cable routes on top of laminate or linoleum, installing video panels on a plasterboard wall, and other, sometimes curious, problems. In this article, we’ll look at just the main types of work and when they should be done.
Laying cable routes
After approving the list of equipment and its installation scheme, you should familiarize yourself with the specifications for the interfaces used. This will give you an understanding of how long cables can be used and how to place them correctly. Some interfaces can work through special extension cables, while others can only work through special cables. Based on this, it is possible to optimally distribute and prepare the places for cable laying with construction work.
About cameras and video
The arrangement of participants and furniture in the room will give you an idea of where to place cameras and how many of them will be needed to get the best image.
In large conference halls, as a rule, one camera takes a general view, while the others take close-ups of the delegates speaking. If you show a little imagination and ingenuity, a single PTZ camera will be enough. The most important thing when choosing an installation location is to check all possible camera positions and make sure there are no objects blocking the view, as well as no light sources that could illuminate the frame and other obstacles.
To better understand the options for using one or more cameras, check out the following projects:
- Conference room for the Ministry of Industry of the Republic of Belarus is a great example of the need to use multiple PTZ cameras;
- The conference room for the Ministry of Health of the Republic of Belarus has significantly large dimensions, but nevertheless, the VMS system includes only one PTZ camera;
As for the placement of TVs, video walls or interactive panels, everything is much simpler: conference participants should be able to read information from the display. If one display is not enough due to the shape of the room or its dimensions, duplicate displays or video walls of a larger diagonal are installed. When installing, do not forget that even thin modern displays weigh a lot, so you should think about reliable ways to mount them.
Acoustic “nuances”
Sound in conferences is the main carrier of information, and it is imperative to ensure its accurate and clear transmission.
There are noises in any room: the rustle of papers, the hum of the air conditioner, etc. They are familiar and imperceptible to humans, but conventional acoustic equipment amplifies them along with the voice and even louder. In addition, there are many different acoustic phenomena that need to be eliminated – feedback (when the sound from the speakers is captured again by the microphone), echo, and different distances of speakers to the microphone. All these problems can be eliminated by using special equipment. Devices developed for conferences have mechanisms for suppressing all possible interference:
- Echo
- Noise reduction
- Acoustic feedback
- Low audibility
- Conclusion
This article lists only the basic principles of building conference rooms, but there are many pitfalls, such as device compatibility. It is quite possible to equip a conference room on your own if you study the nuances of the devices, order the equipment and install it, but this approach does not guarantee an acceptable end result and entails a lot of time.
The author of the article is Jeff Vertes, a analyst of bestcasinosincanada.net
