We want to display the following flags on a stage. In what order or how do we display them with a podium.

U.S. Flag
Canada Flag
Canadian Province Flag
5 US State flags

Here's what I think it should be.
US flag left of podium, canada flag and province flag to the right, and state flags to the left by admission.

[Peter Ansoff]

Hi! I think that your approach is fine. Basically, you're treating the-US-and-state flags as a group one one side of the podium, and the Canadian-and-provincial flag as a group on the other side. Assuming that your meeting is being held in the USA, the US group should go to the left (as viewed by the audience) and the Canadian group to the right. (If you're in Canada, it should be the other way around). Within each group, the national flag should be to the far left, followed by the state/provincial flags. The state flags can be either in alphabetical order, or ordered by admission date. I don't know offhand if there is a protocol for ordering provincial flags, but it doesn't matter in this case because there is only one.

The only problem with this arrangement is that it will look unbalanced -- you'll have 6 flags on the left and only 2 on the right. The alternative would be to treat all the flags as one big display. In that case, the order from left to right would be US, Canada, and then the state and provincial flags intermingled in alphabetical order. This way, you could have 4 flags on each side: US,Canada,2 State/Provincial on the left, and the other 4 State/ Provincial on the right.

Either way, you are observing the principles of precedence: national over state/provincial, and host nation over other nations.

I hope this helps -- could you post a photo of what the actual display looked like?

Best,

Peter Ansoff