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Thanks for these comments everyone, good food for thought.

At the moment we have a few vendors upstairs which have been set up as rental areas.

We had set up that area as a class space before but it was not being used.

I am well in favour of using the groundfloor as a teaching space as its an easy port in - as Ex Noel writes.

The general problems with floors etc is that As Zena writes it becomes problematic for people finding places.

The academy is quite a large area in terms of space - with the bazaar being on a separate parcel we have problems with students finding the bazaar and wandering over the bridge to it.

In the past we have had a larger ground floor space divided into 4 main sections, one of which was dedicated to vendor representation. We need to space things out to avoid confusing visitors.

I think it may be an idea to ask new visitors when they come in what they are looking for - and some sort of survey around this.

I understand both points of view - from the merchants and the teachers - but we must reconcile them to give the Academy the best choices for our visitors. Teaching spaces and merchant spaces should always be kept Separate. I have taught in the Academy a number of times - Staff meetings are held there. So the fact that guides do not wish to teach there is a matter of personal choice. Everyone likes different environmental surroundings.

I'd welcome more comments from the merchants who are currently owning vendors in the bazaar and the academy to widen the discussion.