National convention seating arrangements are the prerogative of the presumptive nominee. That’s the quick lesson from a tour of Cleveland’s Quicken Loans arena the afternoon before the convention opens.

Right in the front row center is New York — Donald Trump’s home state and also the first state where he won more than 50 percent of the vote. At the far end of the hall, stage left, in an area apparently carved out of the spectator seats when basketball games are being played there (there isn’t such an area at the stage right side of the hall), are the seats set out for the delegations from Wyoming and Colorado, where Trump got pretty much shut out in party conventions. You can scarcely see the podium from there, as this picture taken by my colleague Philip Klein makes clear.