Seat Rows Research Articles

Audiovisual problems at scientific meetings: an appeal from the conference floor.

The floor area required to seat various sized audiences can be computed from tables published by Eastman Kodak Company, Rochester, N.Y. 14650 [1 , 2]. Room shape is important in determining how many people can be seated in a given area within satisfactory distance and viewing angle of the screen [3]. A room with a lengthwidth ratio of 2:1 can seat more people with a comfortable viewing angle to the screen than a room with a 4:3 length-width ratio for the same floor area. For example, a room 14.6 m long and 11 m wide has a floor area of 160.6 m2 and seats 129 persons within a 50#{176} viewing angle of the screen, whereas a room 17.1 m long and 8.5 m wide has an area of 146 m2, but seats 132 persons within a 50#{176} viewing angle [1]. Aisles in the center of the audience waste optimum viewing space. If ordinances limit the length of seat rows, aisles should be located at the sides.

Propagation of Sound across Audience Seating

Measurements have been made in four concert halls, and on scale models of the seats alone, of the attenuation of sound passing at grazing incidence over the seating area. For low-frequency sound, we find attenuation in excess of inverse-square loss, which amounts typically to 15–20 dB; the attenuation is considerably less at frequencies lower and higher than about 150 cps, the frequency of maximum attenuation. This attenuation attains its maximum severity after about 12 seat rows, beyond which little further degradation occurs. It appears to be an interference effect and does not depend markedly on the absorptive properties of the seats. The frequency of maximum attenuation is related primarily to the height of the seats and only secondarily to the row-to-row spacing. This low-frequency loss occurs in all the halls that we have measured, and we believe it to be typical of the main-floor sound of all concert halls.