Conference Room AV by Room Size: Small, Medium, and Large Meeting Rooms
Modern offices have moved away from “every room is a 12-person conference room” toward a tiered approach: lots of small rooms for focused work and quick syncs, fewer mid-size rooms for team meetings, one or two boardrooms for the big stuff. Each tier has its own AV requirements — and treating them all the same wastes money on one end and underserves the other.
This guide covers the four standard sizes, the AV stack each one needs, and the budget you should expect for each.
📏 The Four Standard Sizes
The Modern Office Tiering
🚪 Tier 1: Huddle Room (2–4 people)
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What Goes in a Huddle Room
The smallest tier — a focus room or small meeting space for quick syncs, 1:1s, and impromptu calls. The AV should be entirely self-contained: walk in, plug in (or wireless), start the call, leave. No tech support, no learning curve.
Huddle Room Standard Build
- One 55–65″ commercial display wall-mounted
- Single all-in-one video bar (Logitech Rally Bar Mini, Poly Studio R30) under the display
- Dedicated room PC or BYOD — depends on your platform standard
- Wireless presentation (Logi Tap, Mersive Solstice Pod) for guest sharing
- One small touch controller on the table, or no controller and use the wireless presentation device
Huddle Room — Realistic Cost (CAD)
$5K–$8K
Hardware + install for a single huddle room
~$70/mo
Per-room platform license (Teams Rooms / Zoom Rooms / Webex)
3–5 years
Typical hardware refresh cycle
🪑 Tier 2: Small Meeting Room (5–8 people)
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What Goes in a Small Meeting Room
The workhorse room for team meetings, project standups, and customer calls. Larger table, more people, more flexibility needed. Still works with an all-in-one video bar but a premium tier — and possibly with extension microphones to cover the far end of the table.
Small Meeting Room Standard Build
- One 65–75″ commercial display wall-mounted
- Premium video bar (Logitech Rally Bar, Poly Studio X70, Neat Bar Pro)
- Optional extension mic for the table’s far end
- Wired room PC + touch controller on the table
- Wireless presentation for guest sharing
- Acoustic treatment on at least one wall — small rooms ring badly without it
Small Meeting Room — Realistic Cost (CAD)
$10K–$16K
Hardware + install for a small meeting room
~$70/mo
Per-room platform license
5–7 years
Typical hardware refresh cycle
📊 Tier 3: Medium Room (9–14 people)
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What Goes in a Medium Room
This is the size where all-in-one video bars start to fall short. The room is too big for a single device under the display to handle camera framing and microphone pickup well across all seats. Time to move to a modular system: separate camera, ceiling microphones, DSP processor, room speakers, all engineered for the specific room.
Medium Room Standard Build
- One 75–85″ display or dual 65″ displays for wider rooms
- PTZ camera (or two — front and rear) — Logitech Rally Plus, Aver Cam550, Sony BRC
- Ceiling array microphone — Shure MXA920, Sennheiser TeamConnect Ceiling, Biamp Parlé
- DSP processor (Biamp Tesira, QSC Q-SYS) for audio routing and processing
- Room speakers — distributed ceiling or pendant speakers for far-end audio
- Touch controller on the table — Crestron Mercury, Logitech Tap, or platform-specific
- Properly designed acoustic treatment — not optional in this size of room
Medium Room — Realistic Cost (CAD)
$22K–$45K
Hardware + install for a medium room
~$70/mo
Per-room platform license
7–10 years
Typical hardware refresh cycle
🏛️ Tier 4: Large / Boardroom (15+ people)
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What Goes in a Boardroom
The big room. High-stakes meetings, executive presentations, large hybrid sessions, board meetings. Everything in this tier is engineered specifically for the room — no off-the-shelf bundles. Multiple cameras, multiple microphones, multi-zone audio, dedicated AV control system, integrated lighting and shades.
Boardroom Standard Build
- Large display — 86–98″ single, dual displays, or LED wall
- Multiple PTZ cameras with director software for switching
- Multiple ceiling array microphones covering the entire table
- Full DSP system — Biamp Tesira Forte or QSC Core, with custom audio engineering
- Distributed ceiling speakers with subwoofers for full-range reproduction
- Dedicated AV control system — Crestron, Extron, or RTI
- Integrated lighting & motorized shade control
- Wireless presentation system with multi-source support
- Dedicated room PC + redundant touch controllers
- Custom acoustic engineering — wall and ceiling treatment integrated with design
Boardroom — Realistic Cost (CAD)
$60K–$200K+
Hardware + install for a real boardroom
~$95/mo
Per-room platform license (often the premium tier)
10+ years
Typical hardware refresh cycle for a properly built boardroom
🧭 The Right Mix for Your Office
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Plain English — Most Offices Need More Huddle, Fewer Boardrooms
The data on actual room utilization is consistent: huddle rooms are booked 60–80% of working hours; boardrooms are booked 10–25%. If you’re building or planning a new office, the right mix is roughly: 60% huddle/focus, 30% small/medium meeting rooms, 10% boardroom or training rooms. Reverse this and you’ll have a beautiful empty boardroom while every huddle room is double-booked.
🧭 Quick Decision Guide
Which Tier Are You Actually Spec’ing?
If 2–4 people, 90% of meetings…
Huddle build All-in-one bar, single display, simple. Don’t overspec the daily-use room.
If 5–8 people, mostly internal team meetings…
Small meeting build Premium video bar plus extension mic. Sweet-spot value for most teams.
If 9–14 people, mixed customer/team meetings…
Medium room build Modular components. Stop trying to make a video bar do this size of room.
If 15+ people or executive use…
Boardroom build Custom-engineered for the room. Integrated control. The room is part of your brand.
⚠️ Common Mistakes
1. Building all medium rooms. Most offices over-spec the average and under-spec the extremes. You end up with rooms that are too small for full-team and too big for 1:1s. Tier intentionally.
2. Standardizing equipment across all tiers. A boardroom with a Rally Bar feels small. A huddle room with PTZ cameras and ceiling mics is wasteful. Spec to the room.
3. Skipping acoustic treatment in small rooms. Small glass-walled rooms ring like a bell. The same camera/mic stack that works great in a treated room sounds terrible in an untreated one.
4. Forgetting refresh budget. AV hardware lasts 5–10 years depending on tier. Plan for refresh in the operating budget so it isn’t a surprise capex hit.
5. Not testing from the remote attendee perspective. Every room build should include a live test from a remote attendee’s view. If you can’t tell who’s speaking, the room isn’t done.
Get the PDF
For your facilities team, IT lead, or anyone planning office build-outs and AV standards.
Download PDF →
Building or refreshing an office? Send us your floor plan and team size and we’ll spec out the right tier for each room — and the right standards across all of them.
Alanson Media
Professional AV Integration — Southwestern Ontario
📞 226-242-6008 | ✉️ info@alansonmedia.com | 🌐 alansonmedia.com
