How to make a seating chart
A good seating chart gets made in four passes: rooms, tables, people, polish. Here is the exact workflow, using the maker above.
- 1
Lay out your tables
Add round, rectangle, banquet, or head tables from the toolbar, then drag them to match your room. Snap-to-grid keeps rows straight, and each table shows its own seat count.
- 2
Import your guest list
Paste names one per line, import a CSV from Excel or Google Sheets, or type guests in one at a time. The counter tracks how many are seated versus still waiting.
- 3
Seat everyone
Click Auto-seat to fill the room instantly, then refine: click a guest, then click their seat — or drag a name straight onto a chair. Swaps happen automatically when a seat is taken.
- 4
Title it and export
Add your event name, venue, and date so they print at the top, then download a PNG for sharing or a print-ready PDF for the easel by the door.
Why seat people on purpose?
Whether it's a wedding reception, a fundraising gala, or fourth period, the seating chart is quiet logistics that decides how the event feels. Assigned seats end the awkward scramble for chairs, keep couples and families together, split up the two people who shouldn't share a table, and make sure guests of honor can actually see the action. Venues and caterers ask for one because meal service runs table by table — and teachers keep one because learning goes better when the back row isn't self-selected.
The tool on this page handles the general case — any mix of tables, rows, and arcs. If your event fits a pattern, the dedicated pages go deeper: weddings, the classroom seating chart maker for teachers, banquets, the band seating chart for concert bands, and corporate events — each opens the same editor preloaded with a sensible starting layout. Two more sit slightly outside the usual room: an orchestra seating chart that fans the strings around the podium, and a bus seating chart built from benches either side of a centre aisle for routes and field trips. A restaurant seating chart covers the dining room instead of an event — numbered tables, cover counts and a bar.
There are also pages for particular jobs rather than particular events: a seating chart generator that seats a whole pasted list in one click and keeps couples together, a seating plan generator for building a plan table by table, a random seating chart generator that shuffles guests when you want the mixing decided for you, a U-shape seating arrangement for workshops and boardrooms, a chevron seating arrangement for angled rows in training rooms, an office seating arrangement for desk moves and team clusters, a classroom desk arrangement generator for rows and pods, and the seating chart app page if you were looking for something to install. If you call the document a plan rather than a chart, the seating plan template page is the same gallery in that vocabulary, and the table plan template page starts from a traditional top table if you are printing a board for the entrance.
Seating chart, seating plan, or seating arrangement?
They are the same document under three names. “Seating chart” is the usual American term, “seating plan” the usual British and Irish one, and “seating arrangement” tends to describe the shape you have chosen — rounds, a U, rows — more than the printed sheet. A floor plan is the one genuinely different thing: it shows the room, not the people. If you want the distinctions properly, with how a chart differs from place cards and escort cards, see what is a seating chart. For the shapes themselves — theatre, classroom, cabaret, rounds, U-shape, pods, boardroom — the types of seating arrangement page puts them side by side with what each one actually seats.
How many seats fit at each table?
The most common planning question has a boring, reliable answer. Standard rentals seat the following comfortably:
| Table | Size | Seats comfortably | Max |
|---|---|---|---|
| Round | 60" (5 ft) | 8 | 10 |
| Round | 72" (6 ft) | 10 | 12 |
| Banquet (rectangle) | 6 ft | 6 | 8 |
| Banquet (rectangle) | 8 ft | 8 | 10 |
| Sweetheart | 48" | 2 | 2 |
Leave roughly 54–60 inches between table edges so chairs can pull out back-to-back and servers can pass. If you're working from a floor plan, sketch the room's fixed features first — dance floor, stage, buffet, doors — then drop tables into what's left. The canvas above pans and zooms, so you can work at ballroom scale.
What this maker includes
- Every table type: rounds from 2–16 seats, rectangles, banquet tables, one-sided head tables, sweetheart tables, plus straight rows and curved arcs of chairs for ceremonies, classrooms, and bands.
- Real guest management: paste or CSV-import up to 400 names, auto-seat in one click, drag to rearrange, and watch per-table counts update live.
- Clean exports: hi-res PNG for sharing and a print-ready PDF sized for letter paper. Free exports include a small footer credit; Pro removes it.
- No account, no upload: your chart lives in your browser and autosaves as you work. Undo, snap-to-grid, and zoom are all standard.
Prefer to start from a layout instead of a blank room? The template gallery has classic receptions, classroom rows and pods, gala banquets, concert band arcs, and more — one click loads any of them into the editor.