How to run a wellness room or quiet room at your conference
A quiet room is somewhere attendees step out of the noise: low light, comfortable seats, no talking. A wellness room is a drop-in room, open all day, where people come in between sessions and go back when they are ready. Put it close to the main rooms, list it in the app and on the map, and staff it from open to close.
Pause + Expand · Updated November 2026
Quiet room, sensory room, wellness room
- Quiet room
- The absence of sound. Low light, comfortable seats, a sign on the door, nobody talking.
- Sensory room
- A quiet room built for attendees who need low light and low noise, often neurodivergent attendees. It ends up used by everyone.
- Wellness room
- Programmed. People walk in for something: a short session, a practice, a reset. A sound bath is sound, so it sits next door to the quiet room, never inside it.
It is normal now
The planners' own conferences run them. Cvent and IMEX run quiet rooms at their shows, and Toronto's convention centre has a quiet room of its own. Attendees have come to expect somewhere to go.
Source: Meetings Today, on quiet rooms at conferences, August 2025
Where to put it
Close to the action, on the way between sessions, away from catering and the loudest hall. If people have to go looking for it, they won't. List it in the app and on the printed map, and say it in the opening remarks.
What goes in it
Dimmable light. Chairs of more than one kind. Water. No scent. A sign at the door with the rules: no calls, no talking, come and go as you like.
What we add: a room people drop into all day
We ran one for We Care, the foodservice and hospitality industry's charity that sends kids with disabilities to Easter Seals camps. It was a drop-in room for the whole day, and both of us were there from open to close. People came in between sessions and went back when they were ready. Nobody had to book a time.
A sound room is the wellness room with something in it. Someone walks in tired from a morning of talks, sits for ten or twenty minutes in the sound, and goes back into the afternoon with their energy back. The quiet room next door stays quiet.
Also asked
- Do people have to take part in anything?
- No. Quiet is the default. The sessions are there for whoever walks in.
- Who staffs it?
- We do, both of us, for the whole day.
- Can a sound room and a quiet room share a space?
- No. A sound bath is sound. Give it the room next door and keep the quiet room quiet.
- How long does someone stay?
- As long as they like. Most people come in for ten to twenty minutes between sessions.