Handling a big Death Cafe group

Hi Laura, So what did you do? In London we have had up to 30 odd people in an upstairs room of a French Cafe. The acoustics were not very good, so we needed people to sit around small tables for 90 minutes and talk about why they had come, each having a story to tell and conversation went from there. I also had a facilitator at each table who was also a participant in the conversation. After a shortish break we sat in a large circle for another 30 - 40 minutes where we reported back from each table about what kind of issues they talked about which was good to hear. This led to some more reflections about the evening. Does that sound like something you would want to do? It all depends on what kind of space you have etc.

Posted by Josefine Speyer

We did a quick introduction with the big group and then asked if they wanted to split up, and they did not, so we kept it all together. It wasn't a huge issue as we had a good conversation and acoustics were fine, but I'd ideally like to split people up just to allow more participation. We do have the ability to do that in our space. I was envisioning different rooms but after reading your post, I'm picturing creating small conversation areas within our larger room. That feels much friendlier to me than sending people off to different spaces. Thank you!

Posted by Laura Burton

Break it up

Hi there
I ALWAYS break up into small groups of 4, even if there is only 8 people present. It gives the introverts more opportunity to talk and it allows for greater variety in the conversations (I rotate groups every 30 minutes).

Posted by Lizzy Miles

On Salt Spring Island, BC Canada, we sit all together in one group for about 1 hour, then break into 2 groups, in separate spaces, each with a facilitator. Then we come back to the full group to complete and share. Works well for us. Typically we have 20-24 people each time.

Posted by AnnaHaltrecht