Why Not Rounds?
You only need to have watched a few Golden Globe winners circum-navigate their way between round tables to the stage to collect their statues to realize how awkward any movement between those tables tends to be in a setting of rounds.
Rounds larger than 6’ separate participants and do a real disservice. People tend to talk with the person next to them, and, at most, with two people on either side. Noise level rises when participants try to talk across the table, and they soon give up out of frustration. On occasion, individual can be left out of conversations, e.g. when one’s head is turned to the right in conversation, the person on the left may be excluded unintentionally. Without pulling back slightly from the table, it is difficult to carry on a conversation with more than three, and often difficult with three. And when the presentation begins, there is a reluctance to turn ones chair directly facing the presentation, leading to twisting and contorting.
Choosing the Focus of the Presentation
When there is no single point of focus, but rather a screen for power point as well as a presenter, that would mean aiming the table slightly to the left or right, instead of a direct lazer beam focus. Determine in advance where the focus will be drawn depending upon the percentage of time factors in the presentation will be “on.”
Typically, a convention closing program will be set up inappropriately for a three hour session in which a mere 5 minutes of power point or video will be in use to publicize the next annual meeting. So, the screen dictates the focus of the room that entire morning, even though the remainder of the time, 2 hours and 55 minutes, is used for presentations being made from the stage.
If the screen is the focus under 20% of the time, then set the focus toward the presenter. If the presentation is 20-50% on screen, then calculate the focus as the mid-point between presenter and screen. And, if the screen is in use 50+% of the time, bias the set more toward the screen. Direct the arrow between the teepee tables more and more toward the screen rather than aiming directly between screen and presenter.