I’ve helped some churches recently layout their multi-purpose rooms and fellowship halls to maximize their seating capacity around banquet tables. When churches commonly used mostly rectangle tables, it was fairly simple to determine how many people could be seated in one serving. Today round tables are the growing choice for churches and capacities are harder to determine. Here are some suggestions to assist your church in your purchase of the appropriate church furnishings for these areas:

• Use 52-54 inches as your spacing between round tables.  In other words, there should be no point in your room where any table edge is closer than 52-54 inches to the tables in any direction.   This will allow the chairs at adjacent tables to be pulled back from their respective tables without undue congestion.
• Consider using a variety of sizes of round tables.  In most cases, 72″ diameter tables create wasted space.  60″ round tables are by far the most popular size we recommend.  However, there are times that a few 54″ round or 48″ round tables will fit into a spot that another 60″ will not.  You can add a few seats with a smaller size table versus forfeiting that space altogether.
• Make sure your choice of seating for your tables does not  negatively impact what a table will normally seat.  Most banquet chairs are 18″ wide.  Occasionally a church will use 20″ or 21″ wide chairs which results in the lost of one seat at each table.  That can have a large impact in reducing the number of seats in a sizable room.

If you need help with your table layout, please feel free to contact me and I’ll be pleased to do so.  And when it comes to the best prices on tables and seating for these areas (along with waste receptacles and tablecloths), be sure and contact Church Furniture Partner!