What wedding venue software has to do
The seven things a wedding venue needs from its floor software, the three that look essential and are not, and how to tell them apart in a demo.
Resources and Technical Guides
Guides on running and laying out events
Technical guides on capacities, furniture dimensions, banquet organisation and laying out rooms to real scale.
How to digitise an events venue
Why venue digitisations fail, where to start, which wedding to pick for the trial run, and how to measure in four weeks whether it has worked.
Floor manager's checklist for event day
A step-by-step checklist for coordinators and maîtres d' on the day: checking tables, allergens, high chairs and the kitchen's timings.
What a badly planned banquet set-up costs
The overtime, the extra staff and the complaints that come out of a set-up decided on a plan with no scale, costed out event by event.
Outdoor bars and dance floors
Laying out open-air wedding spaces: where to put the bars, which way to point the dance floor for sound, and planning marquees.
How to quote a banquet from the plan
Which lines of a banquet quote depend on the set-up, how to use the plan as a sales document, and why committing to a tight capacity gets expensive.
Tablecloth sizes for event tables
A technical guide to tablecloth sizes for weddings and events: working out a full drop to the floor on 150 to 200 cm tables, and rectangular linen.
Corporate event brief: what to ask
The five questions that change the whole set-up of a corporate event, what each room format implies, and what to put in writing before holding the date.
Standardising a hotel’s room set-ups
How to stop every salesperson quoting a different capacity: one template per set-up and room, names nobody can confuse, and who is allowed to change them.
Giving couples access to the plan
Save weeks of emails by sharing an interactive link with the couple so they can arrange their own tables, with capacity checked as they go.
Licensed capacity vs banqueting capacity
Where each number comes from, why the one on the licence is almost never the one you can serve, what service takes away, and how to document what you offer.
Sell more events with scale plans
How interactive, true-to-scale plans help venues and hotels close more show-rounds with proposals clients can actually picture.
How much floor staff each set-up needs
Waiter-to-cover ratios by type of service, what changes with a buffet or a reception, and how the room plan corrects the sum before you hire anyone.
High season without redrawing the same plan
How to stop drawing the same set-up thirty times: name the usual one, copy last Saturday’s, and know the one thing that never gets copied.
Why not to draw room plans in Excel
The limits of drawing plans in Excel or PowerPoint: measurements that are not real, no allergens by seat, lost versions and hours of wasted work.
From spreadsheet to final seating plan
The four columns a guest list needs, what to do with «plus ones» and non-repliers, and where to put allergies so they reach the kitchen.
Evacuation rules and safety aisles
Fire safety in event rooms: minimum width of emergency exits, keeping evacuation routes clear and the distances the rules require.
Show the client the plan, not twelve emails
Why a PDF by email starts an endless chain, what the client should be allowed to touch, when to send the link and how the final version gets closed.
Laying out a corporate reception
How to organise a standing cocktail reception: working out poseur tables (the 30% rule), where to put the buffets and how to avoid crowding.
Allergens: what a caterer must be able to prove
What regulation 1169/2011 requires at a banquet, the difference between informing and tracing, and the record you must be able to produce.
Weddings across two spaces: ceremony and banquet
Two plans and one guest list: how long it really takes to move 120 people, what gets set up during the drinks, and why the wet-weather plan is drawn first.
Stage and AV space in event rooms
How to work out the square metres a stage, projector, lectern and sound desk will take before you lay out the tables in a room.
Setting up in a venue that is not yours
What to measure and photograph on the site visit, the things nobody tells you about a space, and how to draw someone else’s room with four measurements.
Theatre versus classroom setup
Theatre and classroom layouts compared for conferences and conventions: m² per person, central aisles, viewing angles and acoustics.
Marquees: capacity, gangways and access
Why a marquee is not a room, how much the perimeter costs you, where the service access goes, and how evacuation works outdoors.
The set-up timeline for the day
How to build the timeline backwards from the drinks reception, the order you cannot change, and what the point of no return of a set-up is.
Service timings and room layout
How to work out plate timings at a banquet from the distance between tables and the kitchen: aisle design and waiter circuits.
Charging for the extras in a set-up
What counts as the base set-up and what counts as an extra, the four almost nobody charges for, and how to justify the price with the floor space they take.
Last-minute cancellations at events
A protocol for handling guest cancellations 48 hours before a banquet: rebalancing tables, telling the kitchen and updating the digital seating plan.
The price per cover depends on the set-up
What the set-up changes in the real cost of a banquet, why long tables cost more to serve than rounds, and what a tight capacity costs you.
Venue, caterer and planner in step
How to keep the venue, the caterer and the wedding planner in step without duelling spreadsheet versions: one shared plan, allergen sheets and live changes.
When the maître leaves: what nobody wrote down
The set-up knowledge that lives in one head, how the plan becomes the memory of the room, and what it really costs when it walks out of the door.
Season opening checklist
What to check before the first wedding: a real inventory of tables and chairs, room measurements that have changed, standard set-ups, and who still has access.
The room setup sheet for events
What a room setup sheet is and how to write one: number of tables, linen, high chairs, the head table, a scale plan and service instructions.
Common mistakes in banquet layouts
The 7 most common mistakes when laying out event tables: overcrowding, blocked exits, chairs too close together and no clearance around columns.
The children's table at weddings
How to organise the children's table at weddings and banquets: recommended ages, high chairs, placing it near the entertainers and serving children first.
Wedding seating with separated parents
How to arrange wedding tables when the parents are separated: zoning the room, secondary tables of honour and the room psychology that avoids tension.
Kitchen sheets and allergens at banquets
How to structure the kitchen sheet for a banquet: an exact count of special menus, coeliacs and vegetarians, and where each one sits by table and seat.
The wedding head table and protocol
Protocol for the wedding head table: the traditional French or English arrangement, round head tables, how many people and sightlines across the room.
How to make a wedding seating plan
A step-by-step guide to organising a wedding seating plan: grouping by affinity, guests per table, the couple's table and allergen reports for the caterer.
Setup types for event rooms
A visual guide to event setup types: imperial, U-shape, cabaret, classroom and theatre. Capacity ratios, m² per person and the recommended plan.
Table sizes for events and weddings
A complete table of sizes for wedding and event tables: rounds from 150 to 200 cm, rectangular and imperial, with the exact comfortable and maximum number of guests.
How to calculate a room's capacity
Learn how to work out the capacity of banquet, wedding and event rooms using the m² per guest formula, the setup type and the real usable floor area.
Distance between banquet tables and aisles
Spacing guide for banquet and wedding tables: 90 cm waiter clearance, 1.5 m between table centres and code-compliant evacuation aisles.