I've noticed the same thing regarding parties, where a smaller venue invariably means a better time than a larger one. Years ago when I was IABC/Dayton chapter president and on the PRSA/Dayton board we traditionally had a joint Christmas party that was in a nice, large private room at a local restaurant.

It was about as exciting as watching paint dry.

The year I was chapter president me and my counterpart in PRSA decided to eschew tradition and booked a small party house behind one of the area's trendy bars. Fire code pegged maximum occupancy at 35. We crammed in 63.

And everyone had a ball. Even though people were almost literally standing in each other's shoes! For several years after that it became the highlight of the season until the numbers became simply unworkable for the party house to accomodate.

I think when you have a small space filled up it forces people to encroach and accept encroachment on our "personal space." The result is that it forces a level of intimacy right from the start that people seem to thrive on.

Jews don't have wakes--least of all the hardy few still scattered in the Catskills. We "sit shiva"--seven days of mourning all day, and mourning all night.

Keep up the good work--and I'm still getting hits from your blog...

Dear Mussolini--

Just to give you a little back-up, here's an excerpt of my coverage for The Ragan Report, on the room set-up:

"... during one hour-and-fifteen minute time slot on Monday, RR ran around the hotel, ducking into five sessions in a desperate attempt to collect useful items for this special issue and story ideas for the future.

"If the session we started in was a morgue, the one we ended in was the cemetery itself. The room set-ups were partially to blame; they were all giant ballrooms, with the seats all the way in front and a football field of empty carpet in the back, giving each session all the intimacy and sense of importance of a book club meeting on the floor of the Louisiana Superdome."

I, too, remember the same thing happening. I had a session at a Ragan conference in the humongous ballroom at the downtown Chicago Fairmont hotel. At six o'clock IN THE MORNING!!!!! It was hell drowning out the snoring of the people scattered hither & yon across the landscape of that room.

Remember it Steve? You introduced me.

Steve,

I was at your session and I agree with you that it was a bit of a dead crowd. Be assured the lack of response from the audience had nothing to do with your presentation. I think the fact that the temperature in the room was minus 10 was putting many people into hibernation mode.

Personally, I found the session both informative and fun. My favorite moment was when you went on a rant about Dr. Phil. I think I scared the person next to me with my snorting laughter.

Steve, I once gave a presentation in the Gold Coast Room at the Drake Hotel in your fair hometown ... not only were there about 200 people in a room that could easily hold at least twice that many, but the opulent surrounds made me feel like I was about to fire up a PowerPoint in the Palace of Versailles' Hall of Mirrors. (I kept waiting for a dude in a powdered wig and short pants to bring me some tea.) AND I had the morning session. At one point, I think I heard crickets.

I am not a crowd psychologist, but I've always wanted to be. I'm quite certain there's an online degree available somewhere...

But I know what you're talking about. I once saw a play in a theater that sat about 100 people and it was incredible. It felt like I was living in the main character's living room, taking in his life as he lived it. Same play in a huge venue lacked the intimacy of the first viewing, ruining the whole play for me. There's something to this, Steve, and I'll be sure to send you a copy of my master's thesis once I near graduation from said online program.

I am not a crowd psychologist, but I've always wanted to be. I'm quite certain there's an online degree available somewhere...

But I know what you're talking about. I once saw a play in a theater that sat about 100 people and it was incredible. It felt like I was living in the main character's living room, taking in his life as he lived it. Same play in a huge venue lacked the intimacy of the first viewing, ruining the whole play for me. There's something to this, Steve, and I'll be sure to send you a copy of my master's thesis once I near graduation from said online program.

It's not the size of the room that's important - it's whether a speaker brightens it by entering or leaving.

Actually, size does matter.

I'm with you, Steve. I do believe the size of the room -- as well as the decor, including whether or not the room has opulent chandeliers, walls full of mirrors and carpet designs that evoke either 17th century throne rooms or trippy 1970s -- has a noticeable effect on the energy levels of the presenter and the audience.

Pete, I had to laugh at your comment about the 6 am session. I, too, led one of those breakfast sessions on the last day of a Ragan conference. Only, to make matters worse, I was ill, so every time I glanced down at the carpet design I thought I might add something very unpleasant to it.

Give me a small room packed to the gills over a half-filled ballroom anytime. Better yet, give me any place outside of a hotel. Remember the room at the botanical gardens where you led a corporate session for my client a few months ago, Steve? And I led a seminar in April in one corner of a coffee shop's live-music venue, right there in the window, with an Amtrak line running just outside. What a cool space.

Yes - room size matters. Only patsy event organisers will try and tell you otherwise.

I've run and spoken at a swag [translation: lot] of conferences over the years and the best ones are always small. There is something energising about speaking to a room jam packed with people seated and standing at the back. it's nice seeing the heads poke around the door to see what the buzz is.

A packed room gets more out of a speaker than an empty room. The reverse is also true - an empty cavern dampens a speaker.

The worse possible scenario is to have a huge room, half full of people scattered throughout. Difficult to build a cohesive group. Momentum suffers.

Victor.

PS: Love the MacBook. Thanks for the lead.

Actually, there is a scenario worse than a huge room half-full of people, and that's having the 2:30 - 5 pm slot on a Friday afternoon, the last day of a conference, in Las Vegas. I would have taken the half-full, huge room over that one any day.

Robert, I think I was there for that session! was it the 2003 CCC, in a room shaped like a bowling alley?

On about my third day in ECOM (I am a convert after wasting nine years in Finance) I was planning a town hall. My new boss told me the first of many golden rules: always book a smaller room than you need, and fill it. Make people fight for a good spot. Gives it a sense of occasion.

-Neruda

That was the one, Neruda. And here's the worst of it: Recognizing that I was holding a small group hostage on a Friday afternoon at the end of a conference in Las Vegas, I made the audacious decision to end the session a little early (say, 4:30 instead of 5). I actually received a negative comment from one of the session attenders who complained that he didn't get his money's worth since I cut it 30 minutes short.

Rest assured that was not *my* feedback form. I was very likely at the craps table well before those forms were busted out.

A "post" conf session has to be spectacularly useful *and* entertaining to have any chance at all...never mind the "vegas" and "friday" aspects. Conference-coma alone is enough to bring a session to its knees.

>>It was hell drowning out the snoring of the people scattered hither & yon across the landscape of that room.

Well, Pete, it wouldn't have mattered if you had followed my lead and mastered the art of giving presentations in YOUR sleep as well. Not only would no one been the wiser but, as an added bonus, you could have been first in line for the breakfast buffet!

Craig

Ok, I wasn't at the conference (sucks to be me!) but am I the only one who thought maybe it wasn't the room? People you were in the Big Easy! Maybe they were just too hungover and exhausted to participate much but didn't want to miss you so they showed up anyway??

Steve - you know I think you're the best presenter ever, ever, ever... but if there's gonna be a place where you're gonna get beat by the partying, New Orleans would be it...no??

While we're at it, what IS the deal with hotel conference rooms whose plans have apparently never been scrutinized by an architect familiar with acoustics? I've been in some homely conf rooms at local motels and some huge mothers in places like Chicago and New York, and NOT ONE has ever had (1) SILENT heat and air conditioning, (2) DEPENDABLE microphones, or (3) acoustic design. When you can hear the vacuum cleaner in the hall or the flushing of the toilet next door more clearly than you can hear the speaker, something's wrong. Add a staff not trained in the best way to set up tables, and you've got a snoozefest no matter how enlightening and entertaining you are.

So my question is, are conference rooms NOT a significant source of income for hotels? This would explain why they don't make them better. Or do people just not complain?

Steve - I'm sure you were brilliant, as always. It must have been that all those people were exhausted and hung over from their wild partying with their fellow communicators in the Big Easy. While greatful for your enthusiasm, they were no doubt trying to manage the kabillion little sledgehammers inside their heads and the shag carpets where their tongues used to be. That having been said, how does entering the letter "r" in the field below reduce spam? - Amy

It's what I like to call the "First Person Syndrome".

I do a fair amount of acting in community theaters, run a few seminars throughout the year and practically LIVE at the movies. In each venue I have noticed the same thing, no one wants to be the first person to laugh.

Whether it is some hidden genetic coding to keep us safe within a pack or simply our societal mores on proper behavior, people (on the whole) are afraid to stand out.

I did a show last year where I entered about five minutes into the scene. I had a killer entrance line that would make people wet themselves on most nights, assuming my fellow actors had already warmed up the crowd.

One night the actors playing my mother and father were tanking. Most nights they would get a few twitters from their lines and then I would enter and up the stakes for a true LOL moment. However, on this night the audience was stone cold silent during my stage parent's interchange. When I entered, my line that would usually slay the audience, casued merely a paper cut on the funny scale.

Was it the line? Nope, it never changed from the first day it was written on paper. Perhaps teh delivery? Once a show is done rehearsing you don't change the delivery (unless it's really not working).

With all else being equal, I will stand by my "First person" theory every time.

Steve,

Do you write these columns so people will tell you how great a speaker you are? :)
jk - never heard you speak, but I think you're a good guy.

Paul