Short answer: there is no single number, there are two. In Turkey the design live loads for floors come from TS 498, and its Table 7 puts meeting and waiting halls, sports, dance and exhibition halls, theatres and cinemas, shops and restaurants on one line at 5 kN/m², which is 500 kilograms per square metre. Grandstands without fixed seating sit higher at 7.5 kN/m², housing and offices lower at 2 kN/m², and the garage line of 5 kN/m² applies only to vehicles up to 2.5 tonnes total weight. The second number is the one that actually causes trouble on site: the load pressed into a single point. Open a scissor lift spec sheet and you see it. Genie lists the GS-1932 at 1,329 kg machine weight, 651 kg maximum tyre load and 11.69 kPa occupied floor pressure. That 11.69 kPa works out at roughly 1,190 kilograms per square metre, more than twice the design value of the hall it is driving across. Below: how distributed and point loads differ, how to ask a venue which category its floor was designed for, forklift and lift axle loads, how many feet carry your stage and LED wall, where the line sits for bringing a car indoors, and the spreader plate calculation.
What does the TS 498 number actually mean?
TS 498, the Turkish standard on design values of loads used in dimensioning structural elements, groups vertical live loads by type of use. In the November 1997 text, Table 7 gathers mosques, theatres and cinemas, sports, dance and exhibition halls, grandstands with fixed seating, meeting and waiting halls, shops, restaurants, libraries, archives and light workshops on a single line at 5 kN/m². Stairs in buildings open to the public carry the same value. Housing, terraces, rooms, corridors and offices sit at 2 kN/m², hospital examination rooms, classrooms, dormitories and lecture halls at 3.5 kN/m², and grandstands without fixed seating at 7.5 kN/m². The standard's own definition of live load matters here: clause 0.2.1 counts people, furniture, stored material, machinery, vehicles, equipment, cranes, wind and snow as live load. Your stage, your LED wall, your forklift and your guests all sit inside the same number. What the value permits is where the misreading happens. 500 kg/m² means a 10 square metre area can take 5 tonnes spread evenly across it. It does not mean 5 tonnes can be stacked in one corner of it.
Distributed load or point load? The same tonnage gives two answers
Table 7 of TS 498 gives uniformly distributed values and carries no separate concentrated load table for floors. The European standard is explicit about that second number. Table 6.2 of EN 1991-1-1 gives two values for each category of use: a uniformly distributed qk for general effects and a concentrated Qk for local effects. A note under clause 6.3.1.2 says the concentrated load is considered to act at any point on the floor, normally over a square with a width of 50 mm. In areas where people congregate, Qk can be selected between 3.5 kN and 7.0 kN. Four kilonewtons is roughly 410 kilograms, and it lands on 50 by 50 millimetres, which is 25 square centimetres. Event hardware works at exactly that scale. A podium leg, the base plate of a ground support tower, the rear foot of an LED frame each meet the floor through a few square centimetres. Which is why floor trouble almost never comes from total tonnage. It comes from how many points that tonnage is split across.
Which category was your hall designed for? C2 versus C5
Table 6.1 of EN 1991-1-1 splits areas where people congregate into five subcategories, and the split is directly useful to a planner. C1 is areas with tables: schools, cafés, restaurants, dining halls, receptions. C2 is areas with fixed seats: theatres and cinemas, conference rooms, lecture halls, waiting rooms. C3 is areas without obstacles for moving people: museums, exhibition rooms, the access areas of hotels and hospitals. C4 is areas with possible physical activities: dance halls, gymnastic rooms and stages. C5 is areas susceptible to large crowds: concert halls, sports halls including stands, terraces. Table 6.2 separates them too, with qk of 3.0 to 4.0 kN/m² for C2, 3.0 to 5.0 for C3, 4.5 to 5.0 for C4 and 5.0 to 7.5 for C5. A note in the standard states the thing that matters most: areas that would be classified C2, C3 or C4 may be classified as C5 by decision of the client or the national annex, depending on their anticipated use. On site that reads plainly. Strip the fixed seats out of a conference hall and put a standing crowd in their place, and you are using the room in a category it may not have been designed for. So the question for the venue is short. What live load value was this floor designed for?
The heaviest load is set by the crew, not the guests
A venue floor has its hardest hours during load-in. Two machines stand out. First, the scissor lift. Genie's published specification for the GS-1932 lists 1,329 kg machine weight, 651 kg maximum tyre load, 1,099 kPa tyre contact pressure and 11.69 kPa occupied floor pressure. The GS-1930 in the same family reads 1,456 kg, 662 kg and 13.6 kPa. Divide the tyre load by the contact pressure and the patch where one wheel meets the floor comes out in the region of 60 square centimetres. That is 651 kilograms landing on about the area of a hand. Second, the forklift. EN 1991-1-1 sorts forklifts into six classes, FL1 to FL6, and gives the smallest, FL1, a net weight of 21 kN and a hoisting load of 10 kN. Table 6.6 puts the static vertical axle load of an FL1 at 26 kN, about 2.65 tonnes. The standard then asks for a dynamic magnification factor: 1.40 for pneumatic tyres, 2.00 for solid tyres. A solid-tyred FL1 therefore means 52 kN, roughly 5.3 tonnes, on one axle. Horizontal loads from acceleration and braking may be taken as 30 per cent of the vertical axle load. Turkish occupational safety law points at the ground as well. Annex II clause 3.1.1 of the Regulation on Health and Safety Conditions in the Use of Work Equipment, published in Official Gazette no. 28628 of 25 April 2013, requires mobile or dismountable lifting equipment to be used in a firm and stable manner under all foreseen conditions, with the characteristics of the ground taken into account.
Stage and LED wall: how many feet carry the load?
The load rating in a stage deck catalogue and the load rating of the venue floor are two different numbers, and on site they get mixed up often. Every deck in Prolyte's StageDex range is rated at 750 kg/m². That figure tells you what the deck carries on its surface. It says nothing about how the load travels down the legs into the floor. Three tonnes on a four square metre module, carried on four legs, is 750 kilograms per leg, and each leg touches the floor over a few square centimetres. On the video side the arithmetic is more concrete. The ROE Visual Black Pearl BP2 panel measures 500 by 500 by 90 mm and weighs 9.35 kg, which is about 37 kilograms per square metre. A 6 by 3 metre LED wall is 18 square metres, so the panels alone pass 670 kilograms. Then come the frame, the ground support tower, motors, cable and ballast. The total can reach several tonnes, and all of it arrives at the floor through four or six base plates. When you sit down with the numbers, the first thing to check is not the total weight. It is how many base plates there are and how big they are.
Can you bring a car into the hall? The 2.5 tonne line and two categories
This is the question launches raise most. The garage line in TS 498 draws a boundary: the 5 kN/m² value is given for vehicles up to 2.5 tonnes total weight. Large SUVs and electric models cross that line easily, so the first job is to read the maximum laden weight off the vehicle's registration document. EN 1991-1-1 sharpens the distinction further. Table 6.7 defines Category F as traffic and parking areas for light vehicles up to 30 kN gross vehicle weight, and Category G as access routes and delivery zones for medium vehicles between 30 kN and 160 kN. Table 6.8 gives Category F a qk of 1.5 to 2.5 kN/m² with an axle load Qk of 10 to 20 kN, and Category G a qk of 5.0 kN/m² with Qk of 40 to 90 kN. How that axle load is applied is defined too: over two square surfaces with a 100 mm side for Category F and a 200 mm side for Category G. Three practical rules follow. Position the vehicle by pushing it or with an electric tug rather than driving it in under power, because braking and acceleration generate horizontal load. Lay plywood or composite trackway along the wheel path so the weight spreads beyond four contact patches. And ask the venue in writing whether its house rules set any condition on fuel level or on disconnecting the battery terminal.
The spreader plate calculation: how much area do you need?
The first pass is a single division. Take the load on the point, divide it by the permitted value for the floor, and you have the area it needs to spread over. Say a ground support base plate carries 800 kilograms and the hall floor was designed for 500 kg/m². Eight hundred divided by five hundred is 1.6, so that load needs at least 1.6 square metres, which is a plate of roughly 1.3 by 1.3 metres. One thick plate is not automatically the right answer, because a plate that is not stiff enough lets the load gather in the middle again. The common site solution has two layers: a wide plywood or steel plate below, and a smaller plate above it that delivers the load to the centre of the lower one. Note three caveats. The division is a screening check, and the final call belongs to a structural engineer who has read the venue's drawings. A spot beside a column is not the same place as mid-span, and keeping heavy points near column and beam lines is almost always safer. And what lies underneath matters, because areas above a basement car park, a service gallery or a ventilation void need a calculation of their own.
Events in warehouses and showrooms: change of use and what to ask for in writing
Old warehouses, hangars and showrooms have become favourite venues, and there a planning question joins the structural one. The Planned Areas Zoning Regulation, published in Official Gazette no. 30113 of 3 July 2017, defines substantial alteration in Article 4 to cover work that affects a building's load-bearing element or changes its purpose of use, then adds a flat sentence in brackets: substantial alteration is subject to a building permit. That is where a one-off event parts ways from permanently converting a space into an event venue, because the second is a permit matter. The seismic side differs too. Table 4.3 of the Turkish Building Earthquake Code sets the live load mass participation factor by purpose of use: 0.80 for warehouses and bonded stores, 0.60 for schools, student dormitories, sports facilities, cinemas, theatres, concert halls, places of worship, restaurants and shops, and 0.30 for housing, workplaces, hotels, hospitals and car parks. The same building, in other words, was calculated with a different seismic mass depending on what it was designed to be. Ask for these seven lines in writing, from the venue and in your quote: the live load value the floor was designed for, in kN/m² or kg/m²; the text of any loading instruction the venue issues itself; the areas where vehicles are allowed and the maximum vehicle weight; the route the forklift and scissor lift will take and the permitted load along it; the position of heavy points relative to column lines; spreader plate sizes and floor protection material; and separate structural approval for areas above basements and service voids. What you have read here is the general frame, so have your own load plan read by a structural engineer alongside the venue's drawings. Tales Event works out of Istanbul and delivers stage, sound, lighting, LED and set installation as a single package for dealer meetings, launches, gala nights, openings and graduation ceremonies across Turkey. Send us the venue name, the stage and screen dimensions you want and the vehicle you plan to bring inside, and we will come back with a load breakdown, a base plate plan and a floor protection list.
Let's talk about your event
Tell us your idea and we will prepare the concept and quote.