When you see a round table described as 72-inches round, this measurement refers to the diameter of the table top. An important determination table customers typically need to make is how many table do they need for a specific amount of people. Part of this determination, however, is subjective. For instance, you could crowd your 72 round table with people, seated shoulder touching one another and fit many more people around a table than someone who wants people to have enough space to actually move and feel comfortable. 72-inch round folding tables are one of the more tricky tables to determine seating capacity. Here are some ways to go about it.

Round Table Seating Capacity by Circumference

One way to determine seating capacity is to look at the circumference of the round table and decide how much space each person will require at the table. So let’s break this down into inches. The circumference of a 72-inch table is about 226 inches. In general, to sit comfortably most people need about 24 inches of table space. With a round-shaped table, that can be fudged a little bit because people will actually be seated farther away from each other – because of the round tabel shape – than on a rectangular table. So, doing some quick math, having 10 people seated at the table gets each person 22.6 inches of table perimeter for seating.

Estimated Capcity by Activity

Different table activities require different amounts of space to work with. For instance, eating dinner at a table likely requires less space than a posterboard art project for a school. Estimating space for each person will be very important to determine the actual seating capacity of the table.

Seating Capacity by Occupant

We estimated in our circumference method above that a 72-inch round table is likely enought space to seat 10 people in general. However, what if the occupants were all first graders? What if they were all football players? That seating capacity could change considerably depending on what size of person will be seated at the table.

In general, seating capacity can be broken down as follows: 46/48-inch round tables can seat 6, 60-inch round tables can seat 8, and 72-inch round tables can seat 10. From these numbers, use the other two methods to see if you can squeeze a few more people around the table, or if occupants might need more space than normal, which will limit the amount of seating positions.

We often are asked questions about seating capacity of round folding tables. This post will hopefully elaborate this issue, perhaps more than you wanted to know. Round folding tables in the market typically come in 3 sizes: 48 inch diameter, 60 inch diameter, and 72 inch diameter. While design and structure of the legs differs between manufacturer, all other parts of the tables are generally the same or similar. So, the big concern is going to make sure each seating position has enough workable space. To start this process, we will take a look at an easier seating example for Rectangular Folding Tables.

Rectangular Lifetime Folding Table Example:

The 72 inch x 30 inch Lifetime folding table is going to be an excellent starting location. For every foot of length, Lifetime suggests that 1 additinonal adult can comfortably be seated. So, for a 6 ft. rectangular table, 6 adults can be seated; and for an 8 ft. table, 8 adults can be seated. The distribution of seats at the table in the 6 ft. case is 3 adults on each side. So, 72 inches in length divided by 3 seating locations is 24 inches in width for each seating location. The table, is 30 inches deep, so each seating location will have 15 inches of depth to work with. 24 inches x 15 inches means each location in the 6 ft. rectangular folding table example will have about 360 inches squared to work with. What we now will want to do is create as close a comparison for 360 inches squared as we can for a round folding table.

Lifetime Round Folding Table Seating Capacity Calculation:

To keep our numbers as simple as possible, we will first calculate seating capacity for a 48 inch diameter round table. The circumfrence of a 48 inch round table is 48 x pi (3.14159 will be used), or 150.79 inches. To get us a sectional circumference – by essentially slicing up the table area into 6 pieces of a pie – we divide 150.79 by 24, which was our width of a seating position for a 6 ft. table in the rectangular table example, and we get approximately 6 positions available. Now to verify the amount of space available per position. To get the square-inch space, we calculate the area of the table top, which is 24 inches squared x pi (3.14159 will be used), and then divide by 6 to get the per-position, square-inch space. This turns out to be 301 inches squared per position. How important are those extra 60 square inches? You will have to decide based on your desired activity and use; but, for most occassions, a 48 inch round folding table should seat about 6 people comfortably.

Using this same calculation procedure, the circumfrence of a 60 inch diameter table is 188.50 inches. This provides sectional space for about 7.85 positions. Each of those positions will have about 360 inches squared to work with. This total brings us back to our familiar total from the rectangular table example above. For most situations, a 60 inch diameter table seats 8 adults comfortably.

Finally, we come to the 72 inch diameter round table. The circumfrence for this size of table is 226.19 inches, which creates about 9.42 positions. This number seems to tend toward losing a position; but, when you look at the square-inch space for each position, you will see you have ample room for an additional space. After calculating the area of the 72 inch table, we see that each of the 9.42 positions has about 432 square inches to work with. Even if you consider that with this large of table each person seated at the table will not be using all of their available space into the center of the table, you still have ample room to add that last .58 of a position to your table. So, 72 inch diameter tables are typically able to seat 10 adults comfortably.