How we choose rooms for a two-day conference

A conference room is not just a number of seats. We start with the walk between rooms: if a break is fifteen minutes, nobody should need more than three of them to get to the next talk.

Then the lunch queue. Six hundred people need at least eight serving points, or the afternoon starts late.

Last, the quiet places: a room near the entrance where anyone can sit away from the noise, and toilets that are not all on one floor.