Sexual Assault -- Do You Have the Room?

One of the key factors in putting together a successful education program is the setting in which you are facilitating the session. To have a personal and intimate conversation, you need an atmosphere which feels "intimate" and personal. You want your audience to feel like they are "together" in the room. If you put 100 people in a 500 seat room, they will spread out and not feel "together" and so they will be much less likely to connect with each other. Without a connection, people are less likely to talk.

Likewise, you want to find a room with as few distractions as possible. For this reason, gymnasiums are horrible settings for talks. The "huge" open space of gyms cause people to look around. The seating is uncomfortable and so the audience is more likely to become antsy and want to move around. Plus, students are use to cheering and being rowdy in bleachers (not listening and/or opening up to personal concerns).

The idea setting? For a very small group (under 100 people), circle seating is great so that everyone feels like they can see each other. When anyone (the facilitator or the audience member) talks in a circle setting, those listening feel like the person is talking directly to them. A "personal" feel is your goal.

For larger groups, you want a room that barely has enough seating to fit everyone in. The more compact everyone is, the more the audience feels like they are "together" in the room. In tight spaces, funny moments are likely to draw large laughs because the "togetherness" will make people feel safer to laugh and have fun. During serious points of conversations, more people will speak up because they feel like they are surrounded by others who are "with them." Ideally, you want to be in an auditorium that fits the logistics we have just mentioned. An auditorium is ALWAYS better than a ballroom because an auditorium is designed to be focused on the stage (both visually and with hearing). Rarely does a ballroom have fantastic sound that is equal for the attendees in the front of the room as with the back of the room.

To help make the biggest impact on your audience, give your audience the setting most likely to encourage their involvement!!