Get there early once and you’ll see how the room works before anyone starts performing in it.

Rooms have a setup phase, and it is more revealing than the event. Before an audience exists, people are just doing the work: who arranges things, who gets asked for a decision, who everybody checks with. Once the room fills, all of that goes behind a layer of behaviour put on for the occasion.

Turn up twenty minutes early to one thing this week, a practice, a meeting, a shift. Do not try to be useful, just watch and be friendly. You will leave knowing who actually runs the place, which is information nobody will tell you later.