Where banquet chairs with arms belong in a well set ballroom

Look at a ballroom from the doors before the guests arrive. The rounds are set, the napkins folded, and one long table faces the room from the front. If the chairs at that table have arms, the eye finds it at once.

That is the first reason to buy banquet chairs with arms: they mark a place. The second is practical. An armchair takes more width than a side chair, so it belongs where the table has room for it, and nowhere else. Most well set function rooms end up with both kinds, and the planning is in knowing which goes where.

The width an arm takes

Start with two records side by side. The banquet stacking arm chair is 21 1/2 inches wide, 18 1/2 inches deep and 37 inches high, with a steel frame at 19 pounds. A copper vein banquet side chair with a brown vinyl seat takes 17 1/4 inches of width and runs 20 1/4 inches deep, at 15 pounds.

The armchair is more than four inches wider. It is also two inches shallower than the side chair, which surprises people. In the store room their footprints come out close: about 2.8 square feet for the armchair against about 2.4 for the side chair. Both are listed as stackable.

Width is where the difference shows. Four inches a chair is nothing at a head table and a great deal at a crowded round.

Rounds: do the sum first

A 60-inch round is the usual table for eight. Multiply 60 by pi and its edge measures about 188 inches.

Work it through. Eight banquet armchairs at 21 1/2 inches take 172 inches of that edge, leaving about 16 inches to share among eight gaps, two inches each. It fits, just. Ten armchairs would need 215 inches, and the table has 188, so ten will not go. Ten side chairs at 17 1/4 inches take 172 1/2 inches, and they fit with room for elbows tight but workable at close to 19 inches a guest.

So the rule of thumb is simple. Rounds of eight can take armchairs. Rounds of ten take side chairs. If your sales team sells weddings at ten to a table, armchairs on the main floor will cost you two seats a round, which across 25 rounds is 50 guests.

The measurement here is at the table edge, which is where the arms meet the top. The chairs sit a little further out than that, so the figures are on the careful side, never the generous one.

The head table and the board dinner

A head table is seated along one side, facing the guests. At 24 inches of edge a place, a 96-inch rectangle seats four, and armchairs at 21 1/2 inches fit those four places with two and a half inches between each. You lose nothing by adding arms there, and the table reads as the center of the evening.

A board dinner in a private function room is the second natural home. Twelve directors at a long table, an agenda, then dinner: they will sit for three hours and push back between courses. For that room the stackable aluminum armchair with a padded back is worth a look. Its record gives 19 3/4 inches of width, an 18 3/4-inch seat height, a padded vinyl or fabric seat and back, and a choice of powder coat or wood grain finish. It is listed as stackable too, so the room can still be cleared for a reception the next evening.

Armchairs also suit a round with room to spare: a 72-inch table set for eight at a VIP dinner, where the extra edge would otherwise sit empty.

One finish across two chairs

A room that mixes armchairs and side chairs should look like one decision. Match the frame finish first, then the seat.

The banquet stacking arm chair comes in black, copper vein, silver vein, gold vein and sun gold. The side chair family it most often stands beside is listed in copper vein, gold vein and silver vein, each with a set seat color. Pair copper vein with copper vein and the head table and the rounds share a frame color from across the room.

The aluminum armchair pairs the same way with an aluminum banquet side chair with a padded back, which draws its powder coat colors from the same finish list. That pairing lets you choose the fabric on both rather than accept a set color.

Here is the mistake to avoid: assuming that two chairs with the same finish name will match exactly. A vein finish on two different frames can read differently under ballroom light. Order free finish samples for both models and hold them together at the head table before you place the order. Browse the full set in arm chairs and in banquet chairs.

Storing a mixed room

Keep armchairs on their own stacks. Two different models rarely nest together, and a mixed stack is a stack that leans. With 12 head table chairs and 200 side chairs, that means a short stack or two of armchairs beside long rows of side chair stacks, and a shelf label that says which is which.

Count the weight too. Twelve armchairs at 19 pounds weigh 228 pounds; the 200 side chairs at 15 pounds weigh 3,000. The arms add little to the night's lifting, which is one more reason they belong at the front of the room. Our wider choice of stacking chairs lets you compare weights before you decide.

Putting both chairs on one plan

Save the ballroom in property plans with two lines: the armchairs for the head table and the side chairs for the rounds, each with its finish and seat written into the notes. A second function room for board dinners can be its own plan with the aluminum armchair.

When you price it, keep in mind that our eight-piece minimum is met by chairs and tables together, so four head table armchairs simply join the order for the rounds. For the padding choices on both, see our note on padded banquet chairs, and for the dimensions that decide a row, the guide to standard banquet chairs.