Banqueting furniture is often designed to use space as efficiently as possible - allowing you to comfortably fit as many diners as necessary into the available area.
However, diners can quickly begin to undermine this if, unimpressed by the food on offer, they begin to leave their seat, perhaps to go speak to friends, loiter around the bar area, or simply to explore the building or grounds in which the event is taking place.
One possible solution to this is to make sure you dish up something they will want to sit and finish, in order to try and keep your diners in their seats for longer, until you are ready to move on to the next stage of the evening's entertainment.
Research from AXA reveals that 17% of people feel less lonely, depressed or homesick when they eat their favourite comfort food, compared to just 5% of people who eat healthy foods.
But many of the top comfort foods don't have to be unhealthy - and plenty would not look out of place at a true British banquet.
Top of the list is a perennial favourite, the roast dinner, most commonly associated with Sundays, but which can be served any day of the week and is a common menu item for banquets too.
Foods that can be prepared easily in large quantities follow next, with shepherd's pie, chips, lasagne and spaghetti bolognese completing the top five - again, depending on how formal your setting is, any of these would be relatively easy to prepare and serve.
Further down the list are foods that would perhaps be more suited to be eaten at home, including macaroni cheese, cheese on toast, mashed potato, cottage pie, and sausage and mash.
International dishes including chilli con carne (12th) and chicken curry (20th) narrowly missed out on the top ten, which is largely a combination of classic British cuisine and Italian-inspired pasta dishes.
All of these give you a starting point when it comes to keeping your banqueting furniture occupied until the intended end time for the main course - and you might want to follow up with an equally comforting pudding to round off the perfect meal.