Software to match people to party tables?

January 10, 2024 10:50 AM

Does anyone have recommendations for software to manage assigning people to tables at a conference where there are multiple meals and many people and tables to assign?

This is for a corporate event where there are something like 5-6 meals with assigned seating. Currently seat assignments are made on an ad hoc and somewhat random basis, but, as a result, some people end up sitting with the same people multiple times. Ideally, there would be more mixing and less repeats. I imagine something could be done with Excel, but is there any other tool that might be used to get more mixing and to flag where the same people keep winding up at the same tables. (Inspired by my experience of getting assigned to sit near a specific personality multiple times.)

posted by Mid to Technology (5 answers total)

You might want to check out this Hacker News thread, that has commentary and links to softwares:

- https://www.perfecttableplan.com/
- https://seater.steam-oven.net/
posted by many more sunsets at 10:57 AM on January 10 [2 favorites]

This sounds like the Social Golfer Problem.
posted by Arctic Circle at 2:02 PM on January 10

Social Tables, which now seems to be part of Cvent, and AllSeated often pitched to my group of corporate planners, but I never went forward with using either.

I always resorted to excel and used color coding for each table number on successive nights so I could sort each night's assignment and see if I had people who had previously sat together. Besides names I also added categories for gender, office location, business unit and employee band level to help with distributions. It's a beautiful mess of an excel that my brother always told me I could better automate but I'd already found my system and liked the meditative focus needed to achieve it.

Good luck!
posted by icaicaer at 2:59 PM on January 10

I (a teacher, so slightly different need set) use Mega Seating Plan and love it for ease of use. You can create room layouts and participant lists (classes) separately then fill the room randomly. The free version is limited to one saved seat plan but you can just make a plan, print it, and rerandomize.
posted by Wulfhere at 7:10 AM on January 11

I'd use ChatGPT, if you have access. Use numbers rather than names, to reduce tokens used. You can send instructions like:

I have three dining events. Each will have 3 tables (A, B and C) that can sit 4 people. Provide a seating plan for each event that never places the same people at the same table for different events. Only have one person of Rank A at each table.
Example response
Event X, Table A
Name 1, Name 2 and so on.
List of attendees is in format Name, Rank, Likes:
A , 1, Golf
B , 1, Golf
C , 1, Cats; Hats
D , 2, Golf; Trees
E , 2, Golf
etc.

I tried and it gave an accurate response. Obviously you can add instructions to, say, favor people with similar interests.
posted by NailsTheCat at 1:12 PM on January 11 [1 favorite]