Seating layout with Covid space restriction.

[Steve Nield]

I am trying to create a seating layout using the seating tool which is just fine for regular seating but there is a Covid requirement for no more than 4 seats together with a 4 seat space in each row.   Each block of 4 can not have seats behind it or in front of it - see attached    . 

To make things even harder the seating is concentric with reducing radius's for every row.    So far the only way I can figure out how to do this is to create the full block then manually edit it and delete seats which is time consuming and does not maximise the number of seats within the boundary.  If anyone can offer a suggestion I would be most grateful as I am stumped.

[Pat Stanford]

@michaelk can you lend your expertise?

[michaelk]

Hi @Steve Nield

 

Pat's talking about a plug-in I made for my own work called TheateRow.

 

You can get it here along with a sample file and a video tutorial:  https://www.verysmallgroup.com/theaterow

 

Looks like you are dealing with a very big venue.  My plug-in has a hard coded limit of 60 seats per row, but you can combine 2 or more rows together.

 

The tool works by drawing seats in individual rows.  Each seat and each armrest are selectable symbols.  (So there aren't two arms between seats).  There is a video on that page where I use a worksheet to do something similar to what you are talking about.  Start at about 17 minutes.

 

You can use any symbol you want for seats.  The tool will create default seats.

 

For a while I had a "working" tool that I showed to @Pat Stanford(I was probably asking him how to code something) called the "Covid Stomper" that would define seats as blocked.  But that worked by setting a user-defined radius around specified seats and setting all non specified seats that fall within that radius to "blocked".  It worked, but I gave up on it because in the US it turned out we didn't need it.

 

If it looks like something that would be useful to you, let me know if you have any questions.

[Steve Nield]

Thanks @michaelk That looks like an awesome tool. I'll give it a go.