temp seating regulations

[lampie]

Hi out there, maybe you can help me.....

 

I am trying to find out what the rules&regulations are for temp seating in auditorium and other places. I have the following problem. Our theatre has a rather large atrium eg foyer and I have been asked on more than on occasion if it is possible to have some rows of chairs in there for presentations or small events.

My question is are there any regulations regarding the type of chair (eg. joined together with bolts), how many chairs in a row, distance between rows?

 

Had a google around, but could not find anything.......

 

 

Thx Lampie

 

 

 

edit spelling

[Brian]

You need a copy of the "Yellow Book" aka "Technical Standards for Places of Entertainment" ISBN number 1904031536

[lampie]

You need a copy of the "Yellow Book"

yello pages call somebody who knows......

ordered a copy straight away

thank you for helping me this quick :P

 

lampie

[herb]

You need a copy of the "Yellow Book" aka "Technical Standards for Places of Entertainment" ISBN number 1 904031 05 6

 

I believe the yellow book is now out of print and unlikely to be reprinted until new fire regs come into play.

check out www.odpm.gov.uk anf check fire and resiliance section for updated fire guides.

iirc they have guidance on length of rows etc but minimum of 4 maximum of 12 joined together.

if you find anything else let us know

cheers

h

[Roderick]

For antipodeans with the same question:

The Australian Building Code states for seats not bolted down to the floor:

Maximum 8 seats to an aisle - this allows for 16 seats in a row if you have an aisle on both sides

Seats to be connected together in groups of not less than 4

Spacing between rows not less than 950mm (seat back to seat back) and not less than 300mm between seat back (or balustrade etc.) and front of seat.

For bench seating you must allow 450mm per person.

 

HTH

[Andrew C]

I believe the yellow book is now out of print and unlikely to be reprinted until new fire regs come into play.

Interesting - I bought a new copy at ABTT, and there were plenty on the stand.

 

"Seatway" is the clearance between front of one row and the back of the other.

 

Seatway 300-324 - single ended row 7 seats - double ended row - 14

Seatway 325-349 - single ended row 8 seats - double ended row - 16

Seatway 350-374 - single ended row 9 seats - double ended row - 18

 

Up to a max of 12 in a single ended row, and limited by travel distance up around 28 seats in a double ended row.

 

Generally-

 

More than 50 seats - secured together in blocks of not less than four

More than 250 - secured together in rows and the end of the rows fixed to the floor or adjacent rows with chamfered bars

Over 600 - individually fixed to the floor

[Pattern123]

This is an issue rearing it's ugly head here at present with the School's H&S 'Consultant' referring to recent RRO publications which state rather ambiguously:

 

"In general, no seat should be more than seven seats away from a gangway. If temporary seating is provided, these should be secured in lengths of not fewer than four seats (and not more than 12). Each length should be fixed to the floor."

 

This looks to me as if it has crept across from the previous legislation governing permanent seating in Venues, which required that seating be installed in blocks of no less than 4, no more than 12, and must be fixed to the floor, in venues over 250 Capacity. The problem is, now that it appears in these Government documents, consultants and the powers that be will accept them as Law. How exactly we are supposed to attach 230 seats to the floor of our School Hall for Assemblies and Performances, I don't know.

[Brian]

How exactly we are supposed to attach 230 seats to the floor of our School Hall for Assemblies and Performances, I don't know.

You don't have to.

 

The 'Theatres, Cinemas and other Premises' guide for fire risk assessments, which you quote part of above, goes on to say...

 

"Detailed information on seating layouts is given in BS 5588-6 and in the Technical Standards."

 

If you look in table 10 of Technical Standards it says that for seating capacities of between 50 and 250 you only need to fix the seats together in blocks of not less than 4. It's only in the 250-630 range that you need to fix rows together and even then it's not necessary to fix them to the floor.

[kitlane]

Do you know which publication is being referenced. I am not sufficiently familiar with the detail of the RRO to work it out. However, it always used to be the case that if fixing to the floor was impractical, using chamfered floor bars that fixed the rows to each other was acceptable. The 'no less than 4 no more than 12' guidance appears in "Guide to Fire Precautions in Existing Places of Entertainment and Like Premises" which is good but out of date.

 

Does the RRO lay this down as law or just guidance? Is this not a situation where the H&S consultant should be carrying out a risk assessment and coming up with sensible control measures rather than just quoting some guidance document?

 

Anyway, when I were a lad we used to stand during assembly ;-)

[Pattern123]

Thanks for that info guys, which is pretty much as I thought, but you can see that the whole thing becomes ambiguous very easily, and this 'Consultant' has just grabbed one paragraph out of context and misused it. He further misunderstands the concept of attaching blocks of seats together and mistakenly then takes from this maximum row size to be 12 seats. I suspect there will be a lot more of this type of confusion as more and more 'consultants' with little or no knowledge of performance regs get involved.

 

Whilst we are on the subject, the School has a number of bespoke seating rostra which were made 'in-house' before my time. Because these are not constructed from Class 1 timber & low smoke carpet he wants them gone as well, but I would have thought that a simple spray down with Flamecheck or similar would suffice with regular retreatment?

[paulears]

The snag with timber rostra isn't really the fire aspect, it's capacity. Some councils won't allow timber rostra top be used unless they have current documentation, which is usually very difficult to generate once they're getting on a bit. What can you do, test them? If you load them and then apply a derate, it's often not enough for the people who will be on them - and once you test with the necessary load, they're likely to collapse as the screws pull out.

 

This does seem one of those useful times when the Elf of Safety works for you - if your timber rostra are declared unsafe, then they'll probably have to find the money for metal ones!

[Pattern123]

Appreciate that Paul, this stuff is basically a clone of the Felix Staging type which our Junior School has some of, so weight loading no issue, but he is concerned about Fire.

[Brian]

...but he is concerned about Fire.

He really doesn't know what he's talking about does he?

[kitlane]

What is the thickness of the wood? You should be okay with timber framing greater than 22mm and ply or MDF greater than 18mm