A function room is a hard room furnish; we understand. You want to ensure your furniture is durable and reliable to be used for the large crowds that function rooms often service. Function furniture should also be able to be moved easily and packed away in case the room needs to be used for other purposes. Asking all this of furniture can be a lot and can sometimes mean that the furniture will give way in other aspects.
After years in the game, we’ve heard just about every sad tale there is to be heard about function furniture problems and we want to be “Mr Fix-it”. In this article we’ve pulled together the top 5 problems we’ve come across with function furniture and we offer our best resolutions for you.
The number one problem we’ve come across is weight.
1: Too Heavy to move
Function furniture should be able to be moved. We’ve rarely come across a function room where the furniture is fixed and therefore can be heavy without consequence.
Function rooms are used for a variety of events and group sizes. Sometimes a group might need a large number of tables and chairs to suit their presentation-style event. Or sometimes, the room might need to be cleared for an open-space event. Either way, the furniture needs to be moved and adjusted to suit the event and group size.
For this reason, function furniture shouldn’t be too heavy or too difficult to move. When you’re looking for your new function furniture, let your consultant know that it is for a function room. Test the tables and chairs yourself to make sure you can easily move them around.
Tables that can be folded up and stacked away are golden. As are stackable chairs. These save you space in storage and make packing up after an event easy.
Our golden piece of advice here would be not to buy your function furniture without seeing it in real life. You need to be able to see the furniture to ensure it matches your needs and venue. You also need to be able to check the weight and movability of it.
Seeing the furniture in real life will also give you a better idea of the quality of the pieces. This is another issue we see in the industry:
2: Inferior Quality
We can’t say this strongly enough. Your function furniture MUST be commercial grade.
Function furniture is used a lot, and harshly. The groups that come through a function area are rowdy, large and often care little about the seats they’re sitting on and the table they’re leaning against. Function furniture needs to be built for commercial use so as to ensure that it will withstand the beating it will receive in the function area.
The chairs should be weight tested to ensure they can be used for all different weights. They should also be tested for durability and strength. The last thing you need or want is a broken chair and an angry customer.
Your tables need to be able to be used heavily for a variety of purposes. They need to be able to serve meals, be a desk for writing on or as a table for displaying goods.
Your function furniture also needs to be hygienic and easy to clean.
3: Unhygienic and hard to keep clean
All function furniture has to be cleaned after every use – and this is only going to get more strict. In a post-COVID world, hygiene and cleanliness has never been more important. Function rooms are used often and by a variety of groups and people throughout each and every day. There is little control we have over how the furniture is used and treated, however we can control how clean it is before each group moves in.
Many furniture items can’t withstand the tougher cleaning schedules, and therefore you will need to ensure that your new furniture can. Most commercial grade furniture will withstand the heavy cleaning products, however this is something you should check with your consultant before you buy.
Using compact laminate, polypropylene and vinyl would be the best to use in your function rooms to ensure they are kept clean, without getting damaged.
Now you’ve checked your furniture for its weight and quality, you need to ensure that you allow for flexibility in your venue. Inflexibility is a big problem when it comes to function rooms.
4: Inflexibility
Groups of all sizes come to use function venues every day. From the larger groups, to the small, you want to be able to cater for all. Including tables of various sizing and shapes will allow you to host functions of varied sizing.
Having flexibility in your sizes and the capacity of your venue will allow you to offer your function areas to more groups and therefore will encourage more clients to use your rooms rather than your competitors.
When you are designing your new function area, make sure you think about catering for groups of different sizes. Include both square/rectangle and circle tables. Have enough chairs available to fill the room comfortably, with spares in case an event grows and your clients need extra seats. Include tables of different sizes so that your clients can choose to split their group into smaller groups of various sizes, should they want to.
Giving your clients options will give you more clients.
In all this planning, you need to ensure that your tables and chairs will actually fit in the room you have. This takes planning and your layout is very important to ensuring that your function area flows and operates to the best of its ability.
5: Poor Layout Planning
When it comes to planning your room layout, we would suggest you take a drawing of the room and add in the tables and chairs you are planning to include in the space. This way you will be able to see the amount of furniture you can comfortably have in the area without overcrowding it.
Poor planning will mean you can overcrowd the venue and therefore leave little room to move and serve. Poor planning can lead to spills and accidents.
Your function room needs space for caterers to move freely to serve the group. It also needs adequate space for your clients to move about the room, between the tables and to the exits. Usually a function room has many people moving around it and the last thing you need is people colliding with each other, therefore you need to ensure there is space between the tables and chairs. a good flow through the room will ensure that the events run smoothly.
If you’re not sure where to start with your function room planning or furniture, get in touch with us today. We would love to answer any questions you might have and start you on your design journey.