A graduation ball venue in Berlin, judged on the committee's first walk-through

The address is Gustav-Meyer-Allee 25, 13355 Berlin, building 17, on the ground floor. The locality is Gesundbrunnen and the borough is Mitte. S Humboldthain is about a ten-minute walk. U8 Voltastraße and Gesundbrunnen station are nearby. From Hauptbahnhof the journey is about 30 minutes. Wedding is the former borough name and a wayfinding cue, not the address.

On a graduation ball the year group, parents and teachers rarely arrive in the same minute, but they arrive in waves. The invitation names the station, the minutes and the gate. Guests check the railway lifts themselves. We do not promise a lift that evening. Parking on the grounds is possible and does not replace the footpath when several hundred people arrive.

The entrance is step-free and the house is fully accessible. A wheelchair route to the table, the stage and the toilets comes off a pure chair count. A walk-through with the committee takes that path before the seating plan is drawn.

The date and the guest count are checked on the graduation ball venue page.

The main hall, more than 600 square metres, holds a banquet for about 400 guests. A stage, a dance floor and the path to the bar remove places. That is why 400 is confirmed on the actual plan. Once the tables move, the same hall holds a standing reception of about 600. Those are two pictures, not one number.

Philosophia, about 180 square metres, holds about 100 guests for a banquet, or the smaller table for teachers and the committee. It is not added to the 400. The terrace, about 400 square metres, holds about 500 standing and about 300 for a banquet. About 5,000 people apply only to open air on the AEG grounds, across up to 5,000 square metres, and that is not this ballroom.

Row and parliament layouts in the main hall are drawn on request. A graduation ball lives by the banquet and the later dance floor, not by a row of chairs. All figures are orientation, not a blanket clearance.

The evening has one line. Arrival in the courtyard, a cloakroom that does not fill the room, speeches before the main course, dinner from the kitchen on site, then the bar and the dance floor. Speeches in the middle of service take the course apart. One light change for dinner and one for the later hour are enough.

The committee needs a clock that parents and the year group both understand. Speeches after the main course keep the food hot and the words short. Speeches before it have to be decided before the place settings are ordered. Either works. Both at once do not.

Tables that stay are not a dance floor. Tables that move need time and a path that does not send guests into the kitchen. That changeover sits in the running order, not as a surprise after dessert.

Many graduation balls fall in early summer. The terrace in the sheltered courtyard can hold the arrival and the photographs, about 500 standing, when the layout allows it. It is not a roof. What moves inside is fixed before the invitation is printed: the reception, the photograph, or only a short breath of air.

The rain plan is the main hall on the same grounds, not a second room in another borough. About 400 seated guests fit there. The terrace's 500 is not a second table. The AEG grounds, at about 5,000 people, remain an open-air measure and not a promise for this evening.

Wind and an early shower belong on the walk-through, even when the date is in June. A venue photographed only in sunshine still has to hold the seating plan in the rain.

The menu, the bar and pastry come from the house. Sound, light, a stage for the speeches and the kit for the later hour sit on one drawing. A second trade in the courtyard crosses the path between the cloakroom and the hall. The committee speaks to one producer at Cantinerie, not to three companies at three gates.

Ground-level delivery keeps the afternoon build short. Decoration, technology and the kitchen are finished before the first train from Humboldthain arrives. Fast Wi-Fi is there if a guest list runs digitally. It does not replace the seating plan.

Guests should see the tables, the light and the dance floor. Cases and radios stay behind the line agreed on the walk-through. Teachers and parents need the same clear path as the year group.

More than about 400 place settings do not fit the main hall. Neither does a standing reception above about 600. Five hundred seated guests are another format. The 5,000 people of the grounds are not an indoor ball. The rooms are not added to invent a wished-for number.

A conference on the same morning is a different enquiry. The ball is the evening. Anyone stacking a plenary and a ball checks the conference first and this hall second. A fixed row count is not published for the main hall.

This guide names no school and no guest count for a single year group. Logos on the homepage are references, not invented case numbers.

A graduation ball has no single peak. It has waves: the year group, then parents, then the people who missed the train. Minutes between the gate and the cloakroom decide whether the speeches in the main hall start on time. We fix where a queue still belongs to the reception and where it cuts the delivery path. S Humboldthain, about a ten-minute walk, stays the plan. A taxi queue on Gustav-Meyer-Allee is not one.

Building 17 is on the ground floor and fully accessible. A wheelchair, a long dress and the path to the stage need width that comes off the about 400 place settings. Chairs pushed to the wall close out the people the courtyard was meant to welcome. The walk-through measures that in steps, with the committee, before the seating plan is printed.

Parking on the grounds carries the afternoon build, not the whole party. Vans are gone before the first wave. One producer holds the kitchen and that clock. The public lunch counter, Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 16:00, is a different offer. The ball runs by arrangement. Photographs on the terrace stay a wish. If the rain comes, the main hall is already set and the sightline to the stage is clear.