Breakout sessions for hotel conference venues can provide real discussion for your conference delegates and make a real difference to your conference.
What a Breakout Room Is
A Breakout Room is a smaller separate area within your hotel or meeting venue where part of your conference delegates can work independently in groups of people before returning to the main event in the larger meeting room. The venue’s meeting rooms for Breakouts need to be suitable for focused group work so look for rooms that have good natural ventilation and have plenty of natural light.
Typical Room Configurations
For smaller workshops of discussion groups of 6-8 people, Round layouts work well. For short activities, like a standing review of materials or a quick, creative task, Clusters of chairs can be effective. Check with the hotel what layouts can be provided in the breakout rooms.
How Many Rooms You Need
One can plan for the number of rooms required based on the previous point. A rough guide is to have one breakout room for every 8-12 delegates. Hence for 40 delegates, one would require 4 rooms, all running at the same time, hence it is best to check on the total number of rooms available on the date proposed for the conference.
Equipment and Refreshments
Each space should be equipped with a flipchart, pens and a screen or monitor for any presentations. For a full training day a small refreshment station in each space would be helpful to minimise disruption for delegates. The Acas guidance on structuring effective workplace training sessions could also be useful to read before finalising the session plan.
Managing Transitions
When moving groups between sessions build in 5 minutes between each session and make sure someone has been briefed to act as a facilitator in each room.
Proximity and Acoustics
Find out if your breakout rooms are adjacent to the main room and find out if sound carries between rooms on the same corridor.
For Cheltenham Hotel Conference Rooms, visit https://tewkesburypark.co.uk/hotel-conference-rooms.
And don’t forget – good breakout planning can turn a long conference day into something your delegates actually remember.
