Tom KrieglsteinFounder, Global Keynote Speaker, Swift Kick Leadership · Founder and Award-Winning Keynote Speaker at Swift Kick Leadership

Why Room Setup Can Make or Break Your Talk

Name: Why Room Setup Can Make or Break Your Talk
Uploaded: 2025-08-14T16:34:28+00:00
Duration: 57 s
Channel: Tom Krieglstein
Description: In this brief professional speaking tip, Tom Krieglstein explains how the arrangement of tables in a room can significantly affect a presenter’s ability…

14 Aug 2025 · 1 min

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In this brief professional speaking tip, Tom Krieglstein explains how the arrangement of tables in a room can significantly affect a presenter’s ability to engage the audience. He shares two main challenges observed with round tables: (1) roughly half the audience ends up with their backs to the speaker, requiring repeated reminders to turn chairs around, and (2) conversations at a round table tend to involve multiple participants, leading to longer side discussions that are difficult to reconvene. He advises presenters to thoughtfully consider room layout when planning a program, as it directly influences audience focus and the overall success of the session.

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Tom here with your daily professional speaking tip. Today I want to talk about room setup, specifically tables. I just did a program where they had round tables, and round tables are challenging because of two main reasons. Number one is half of the room is going to have their back to me, so I constantly have to tell them to turn their chairs around every time they go and do write something down or talk to a neighbor. The second thing is is that when I say talk to your neighbor, if they're in a row, they're most likely only going to talk to a person to the right and left of them. But at a table, the whole table starts getting in onto the discussion. So discussions will last longer and it's a lot harder to pull the group back because now there's a whole bunch of conversations happening. And also I again have to say, please turn your chairs back around. So think about that room setup as you're doing your next program and how it impacts the outcome of what you're trying to achieve.