Arrays of arrays along a path I am attempting to create a ring of several levels of benches through arrays only. Either this is a little too advanced for Blender or I am missing a step.

I create a cylinder as the back support. I create a cube and stretch it to be the "ramp" that the benches are attached to, and add an Array to make two of them. I create another cube to be one bench, then add an Array to make enough of them to fill the "ramp".



According to one tip of duplicating a group of objects I create a plane and parent these pieces to the plane, then add an Array and Curve to get the plane and its children to follow the curve I have set up. However, all the instances seem to sheer rather than rotate along the path.



How would I go about so that the set faces inward? Will I have to join all my instances together into one mesh? I heard that instances would speed things up but am I over-using it?
You didn't apply the scale of your plank objects, so when they twist they deform badly, just apply the scale with a CtrlA. By the way your setting seems a bit complicated, why not just make one unique object and maybe, if the deformation is not noticeable, duplicate it around with Array + Curve?