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How to Calculate Event Venue Capacity

how to calculate event capacity

Choosing a venue for an event is one of the key decisions when planning an event. The main thing is to have a variety of venues to choose from. Before you begin to search for a venue, you need to clearly define the following: the budget, the number of visitors, needed event space capacity, and other venue options.

How to set event capacity

For effective event venue capacity calculation, there are three factors that may influence the result:

  • The number of guests
  • The time of the event
  • The type of event

Depending on these factors, you can also define your seating capacity and other event parameters. For example, if we are talking about a New Year’s Eve business event for a large company, when the date is beginning to approach, the likelihood of finding a large place available is likely zero, and locations may even be already booked six to eight months beforehand.

If you are organizing a commonplace event like an annual conference that needs time for the announcement, then it is also worth booking the venue as soon as possible.

Since a convenient location means different things in different cases, when it comes to a specific group of visitors, proximity to their place of residence and work will make sense.

When it comes to visitors from other regions, the most obvious solution is to choose a location closer to the airport or the hotel area. The best option is when all the visitors are staying at the venue. There is no need to wrestle with the lack of parking lots, no one is late or will get lost, etc.

Therefore, for the calculation of your chosen location capacity, the following is reasonable:

  • Calculating by your event space square footage

This is a conventional way to check out the event room’s capacity. Organizers order a location according to its size in square footage. The bigger the company, the more people that are going to participate in the event, so the larger the room will need to be. However, it is always difficult to estimate the ratio of visitors to the area of the space this way.

  • Calculating by number of people

Of course, you may note the number of visitors that is announced to be there for an event and then choose the room accordingly. Sometimes it is reasonable to simply calculate how many chairs fit in a room and assume one chair for one person. However, this will only be effective for small events with a low number of participants.

Usually, you know how many guests will attend your event in advance, so it is unlikely that you will forget to clarify such an important parameter as the capacity of the room. But just in case, remember that it’s incredibly difficult to accommodate 500 people in a 250-seat hall.

Besides, there are rules and standards of fire safety that must be complied with. It is also necessary to calculate the minimum required amount of food and drinks. This indicator must be included in your planned event calculations.

You may need to consider several factors while calculating the amount of food and water that will be needed:

  • The number of guests,
  • The type of the event,
  • The duration of the event.

For example, at a three – to a four-hour conference, in addition to tea and coffee, you will need 0.3–0.5 ml of water per person as a minimum. If we are talking about an event with alcohol, then everything is more complicated. For example, you should count the amount of champagne for the guests who prefer champagne or include not less than 350 mL of wine per each person.

You first must clarify what the ratio of women and men is and whether they drink or not. The availability of alcohol affects the status of the event.

The amount of food is calculated on the same principle and is dependent on how many guests you will host, how long they will participate, and what kind of event it is. Only competent calculations by means of an event capacity calculator will help people from the industry or an experienced event agency. Remember, the tastier the food is and the more comfortable the seats are, the better since everyone loves to sit and eat. A satisfied customer is the best customer.

Meeting space calculator at GEVME

The Gevme event registration platform can assist in any event capacity calculation since this is an innovative event management and marketing tool for business.

Setting a capacity limit, which limits the total number of tickets available for the event, and many other parameters are available online at GEVME. For example, if you can fit 100 people in your venue and you’re not concerned with how many of each ticket type is purchased, you’d want to set your capacity at 100.

Any parameter you need to set is manageable in a separate tab on your event dashboard. To better understand how to work with event capacity, register on Gevme.com to manage your events within a cloud-based solution. It saves you time, money, and effort.

Conclusion

Choosing a venue for an event is one of the key parts of planning. Event capacity calculation issues are the event’s lifeblood. GEVME helps you both finalize your event’s agenda and calculate the venue capacity quickly and effectively as a platform for event management and marketing that has other event management online solutions integrated within it as well.

Welcome aboard!

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