What everything means

Booth

A self-contained selling space, usually 3m square, that a trader brings their own gazebo or table to. Sold as a single unit with nothing supplied.

Seen at · Craft fairs, food markets, festival traders

Stall

A selling space in a run of others, sharing walls or frames with its neighbours. Sold by frontage — the width facing the shoppers — rather than by area.

Seen at · Street markets, farmers markets, Christmas markets

Stand

A shell-scheme exhibition space, typically 6m by 3m, with walls, a fascia board and power supplied by the organiser. Larger and more built than a booth.

Seen at · Trade shows, exhibitions, conference floors

Table

A round dining table, drawn to the size its number of covers needs. Sold as a whole table rather than by the seat.

Seen at · Weddings, banquets, awards dinners, charity balls

Seat

One chair in a row, allocated to one person by name. Rows are lettered from the front and seats numbered along them.

Seen at · Ceremonies, concerts, theatres, auditoriums

Pitch

A small standing space with no table or structure — somewhere a food truck parks or a bar operates from. Sold by the spot rather than by frontage or area.

Seen at · Drinks receptions, street food, pop-up bars

Desk

One person's working surface — a school table, a hot desk, a fixed workstation. Allocated by name like any other space, which is what a seating plan and a desk plan both are.

Seen at · Classrooms, exam halls, open-plan floors, coworking

Bus bench

One bench on a bus or coach, allocated as a whole. A pair of children share a place rather than occupying two, which is how a driver assigns them and how the row actually works.

Seen at · School runs, trips, tours, minibuses

Private office

A room let to one person or one company, with a door that locks. Allocated by name and billed by the month rather than by the day, which is the difference between an office and a desk.

Seen at · Coworking floors, serviced offices, studios, workshops

Street

A named route wide enough for vehicles, usually 6m. The name is the point: it is how stewards direct traders at six in the morning, and how visitors find anybody.

Seen at · Outdoor festivals, street markets, showgrounds

Walkway

A pedestrian route between rows — an aisle, a gangway, a footpath. Narrower than a street and normally unnamed, but spaces beside it still count as having frontage.

Seen at · Between any two rows of stalls or seats

Post

A single fixed obstruction: a marquee pole, a hall column, a bollard, a tree, a drain cover. Easy to forget on paper and the cause of a genuinely bad morning when a trader arrives to find one in the middle of their space.

Seen at · Marquees, exhibition halls, public squares

Divider

A barrier you cannot walk through and cannot sell: shell-scheme walling, crowd barrier, a rope line, a hedge. A space backing onto one has a dead side.

Seen at · Show floors, crowd management, site edges

Meeting room

A room everybody shares rather than one anybody rents. Draw it so the desks around it are not sold as though the wall were not there, and so people can see how far they are from one.

Seen at · Coworking floors, offices, studios

Kitchen

The tea point, the breakout area, the place with the kettle. Worth drawing because the desks nearest it are the noisy ones, and somebody choosing a desk would like to know.

Seen at · Offices, coworking floors, staff rooms

Stage

A raised performance area. Nothing can be allocated on it, and sight lines to it usually decide what the seats nearby are worth.

Seen at · Concerts, ceremonies, award presentations

Entrance

A way in for the public. Spaces near one carry more passing trade, which is normally reflected in the price.

Seen at · Every site, at least one

Exit

A way out, including a fire exit. The route to it has to stay clear, so mark it and then put a Keep clear strip in front of it.

Seen at · Required by licensing on almost every site

Amenity

Something for visitors that is not for sale: toilets, a bar, a welfare point, an information desk.

Seen at · Festivals, shows, anything running more than a few hours

Building

An enclosing structure — a marquee, a hall, a permanent building. Spaces are meant to be inside it, so unlike everything else here it does not count as an obstruction.

Seen at · Marquee weddings, indoor shows

Custom area

A blank area you name and size yourself, for the things no list covers: a food truck area, a dog potty area, a first aid point, a queue lane, a smoking area. Behaves like any other structure — spaces cannot sit on it — but the label is entirely yours.

Seen at · Every real site has at least one

Access ramp

A sloped step-free route into a building, onto a stage or over a kerb. Draw the ones that exist: a visitor who uses a wheelchair is reading the plan to find out whether they can get in, and a plan that stays silent has answered no.

Seen at · Halls, stages, marquee thresholds, anywhere with a step

Loading dock

The bay where vehicles back up to unload. The approach to it has to stay clear during load-in and load-out, which is exactly when everybody wants to park there.

Seen at · Event centres, exhibition halls, arenas

Covered area

Ground under a roof that is not a building: a canopy, an awning, a run of gazebos, a bandstand, a stand of trees. Spaces are meant to sit under it, so like a marquee it does not count as an obstruction.

Seen at · Outdoor markets in August, festival food courts, showgrounds

Water

Open water — a lake, a pond, a swimming pool, a boating pool. Nothing can be allocated on it, nobody walks across it, and it usually decides how the rest of the site flows around it.

Seen at · Country parks, hotel grounds, leisure centres

Play area

Ground given over to children: a playground, an inflatable, a soft-play pen. Worth marking even when it is permanent, because parents plan their route around it and it should never sit against a vehicle route.

Seen at · Family events, village fetes, park festivals

Keep clear

Ground that must stay empty: a fire lane, an egress route, an emergency vehicle path. The only thing on a plan with an outside authority behind it, so anything overlapping it is reported as an error rather than a suggestion.

Seen at · Anywhere a licensing officer will look

Open

Nobody has it. Anyone can be given it.

Held

Promised but not settled — agreed on a phone call, not yet paid or signed. This is the state most of an event lives in, and the one a spreadsheet handles worst.

Confirmed

Paid, signed, or otherwise certain.

Corner spot

A space open on two sides that meet, so shoppers reach it from two directions. Worked out from the layout rather than typed in, and normally worth a premium.

Island

Open on three sides or more. The best position on most sites.