The evening
Look for
3,050 – 3,588 sq ft
A range, because the inputs underneath it are bands rather than constants. Quoting a single figure would put a precision on this that the arithmetic does not have.
The bottom of that range is not a rule of thumb. It is 3,050 sq ft because that is the smallest floor the plan solver could actually draw this evening in — a room with nothing spare, and one to walk out of rather than negotiate over. The top of the range is the same room at this format’s generous end.
Where it goes
Dinner + dance
120 guests × 17 sq ft, the planning factor for dinner + dance.
2,040 sq ft
Bar
8 × 3 ft each, plus the 6 ft queuing apron in front that nobody seats into.
72 sq ft
Circulation and service
Whatever is left once the programme is placed — the 4 ft service aisle at the wall, the walkways between tables, and the floor a seating grid cannot use because it does not divide.
938 sq ft
What this evening orders
15 60 in rounds, 120 chairs. Same sizes the floor above is counted from. Change table size in What do I need to hire?.
15tables
60 in round
120 guests ÷ 8 = 15 60 in rounds. The solver draws this size at a 10 ft pitch.
120chairs
Chairs
One per guest. Banquet chairs and Chiavari chairs take the same count; the difference is a style, not a number.
15cloths
90 in round linen
A 90 in cloth on a 60 in table is a standard drop. Floor-length is a different cloth.
16panels
3 × 3 ft dance-floor panel
144 sq ft — 40% of 120 on the floor at 3 sq ft each, about 12 × 12 ft. Panels are 9 sq ft, so 16 of them. Dinner and dancing already includes this floor in the planning factor; it is still a thing you hire.
1station
8 ft bar station
8 × 3 ft each, plus the 6 ft apron nobody seats into. The apron is floor, not furniture.
When you are standing in it
- A room of roughly 3,050–3,588 sq ft of USABLE floor — not the figure on the brochure, which is usually the whole room including the columns.
- Ask what the ceiling is. Dinner + dance wants at least 11 ft.
- Somewhere to put service that is not in the middle of the guest route. A bar on the main walkway makes a queue and a bottleneck out of the same six feet.
What this assumes
- A planning envelope, not a legal occupancy limit. What a room may hold is set by the local fire authority.
- The figure assumes a room roughly half as deep as it is wide. The same floor area long and thin seats fewer — 3,718 sq ft at 26 ft wide is a corridor, not a ballroom.
- Figures come from the same allowances the floor-plan drawing uses, so a room that meets this should draw a plan that works.
- Dinner + dance already includes the dance floor in its 17 sq ft a guest — the floor, the band and the bar come out of one footprint — so it is not added again.