Stage tutorial

The Hopin Stage is where you can reach the entire audience in one place. It’s great for your main talks — keynotes, presentations, fireside chats, panels, interviews, and so on. Up to 100,000 people can view the Stage at a time.

Setting up your Stage

To set up the Stage, go to the Event Dashboard > Venue > Stage (or Stages).

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You will see the following fields for you to fill in:

Stage title (60 characters max)

The descriptive, easy-to-remember name, attendees will use to find the Stage during the event. The Stage Title can be changed any time by the Organizer.

Stage description (140 characters max)

Add in some extra information about your stage, this will only be visible to Organizers in your Event Dashboard to help you distinguish between different Stages.

Who can watch

If you have different ticket types, you can restrict your Stages so that they are only viewed by specific ticket types. If you then link this Stage to a schedule segment, only those with the specific ticket types will see it in the schedule.

Stream provider

There are four different options to display content on Stage to choose from as shown below.

Hopin
Youtube
Wistia
Vimeo

Note: If you choose "Hopin" then you will be given two additional settings including low latency mode and record this stage.

Apps

When you click the Add an app button, you are redirected to the Apps tab of the organization.

There, you can learn about and install various apps that can improve your in-Event experience. For more information on different apps and their capabilities, check out our Integration guides or visit the Hopin App Store.

Once they are enabled, you can go back to Event Dashboard > Venue > Stage enable the Apps that you have installed.

Additional Information Area

You can add additional information to the stage for your attendees by using the content area. Follow this guide to set that up.

Choosing your stream provider

It's important that you choose a stream provider that works well for your needs and your Attendee experience. Here's a little more info about your options.

Pre-recorded videos

You are able to ad pre-recorded videos from YouTube, Vimeo, or Wistia on the Stage, by selecting the respective option from the dropdown menu under "Stream provider".

Then, paste the video ID from the hyperlink of your choice, as highlighted in the image below. Scroll down and click Save.

Note: The Stream identifier field is for the ID only, NOT the entire URL. If the entire URL is used an error will occur.

YouTube playlist

Adding a YouTube playlist will let attendees select which video(s) they want to watch.

Note: In this case, you must use the entire URL and the playlist link must include "https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list="

You can find the link by clicking the Playlist name at the bottom right corner of the YouTube window.

YouTube Live Stream video

Go Live with your camera or via RTMP on YouTube Studio, then send the stream to your Expo Booth on Hopin.

RTMP

You can livestream from a third-party software onto the Hopin Stage using RTMP streaming.

Set the Stream provider to Hopin (if not already selected) in order to see the RTMP Stream tab
Switch to the RTMP Stream tab
Click Generate RTMP setup (this will generate a unique set of stream keys and URLs for your event).

You will then be able to see the RTMPS URL, and Stream Key to input into your software. This will ingest the feed from a livestream program, such as OBS, WireCast, Switcher Studio, Ecamm, StreamYard, and others. RTMP is the solution to choose for live streaming your physical event content into a virtual event on Hopin.

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Note: if you are on a Free plan, a Fallback Key and RTMPS will not be generated.

Broadcast Studio

Select Hopin backstage to use Hopin’s own live streaming studio, the Backstage. For fully virtual events, most organizers use the Hopin Backstage or the Backstage powered by Hopin.

However, the StreamYard backstage allows organizers to quickly access advanced video production features for their events through the event dashboard.

Check out their respective guides, linked above, to see which you think will work best for your event.

Recording the Stage

If you would like to enable the Replay feature, make sure the box for record this stage? is checked! This should be ticked by default, but we recommend double checking, especially if you have more than one admin working on your event.

Recordings can take up to 24 hours to appear in your Event Dashboard > Recordings tab, check out this guide for more info on accessing your recordings.

Getting speakers set up

Have your speakers create a Hopin account.
Send them a link to register for the event (we suggest using a "Hidden Ticket" at a free or reduced price for paid events)
Add speakers to your event using this guide.

Note: they will not be able to enter the event if they are not logged into their Hopin account.

You can then add the speaker to your event schedule under Event Dashboard > Venue > Schedule. Create their segment and select them as the speaker from the drop down list.
They will now show up on your Registration page, Schedule, and Reception Page if you have them on the Schedule as a Speaker.
Make sure you share our speaker instructions with them!
If you can, do a test run with the speaker using a test event. You can duplicate the real event easily by clicking the three dot menu in your Organization's account under the Events tab and selecting "Duplicate". The speaker will have to be registered for this event and the main event.
Send the Backstage link (under Venue > Stage in your event dashboard) to the speaker and meet them there to rehearse.
Confirm that the speaker’s audio and video devices work in the Backstage. They will need to give browser permissions to let Hopin use their camera and mic.
Once you finish your intro and you’re ready to leave your speaker to do their thing, it’s time to disappear. You can leave the backstage completely and it will not be interrupted or you can click the camera icon below your screen to turn off your camera. Your screen will turn to a gray avatar. Click the mic button to mute your audio as well.
When it's time for you to "reappear" on Stage, click the camera and mic back on and you'll come on camera immediately and your attendees will see you on Stage.

How to present slides

Here are the steps for presenting slides on Stage. We recommend two monitors to have your presentation on one screen and the event on another.

Open your deck in a new tab or separate application.
In the Backstage, click Screenshare.

NOTE: Screen sharing option is limited to one person at a time and will be greyed out for the other speakers/presenters until the person stops sharing their screen.

Select the tab or application with the presentation.
Select and hit Share.
You’ll see your camera and screenshare are side by side in the Backstage. Don't worry! On the front Stage the screenshare is full size, and your video is smaller at the bottom of the screen.

That's it, you're screensharing!

Tip: Speakers can share a Chrome tab with sound on. Just make sure the sound starts playing before you share the screen.

Click the Screen sharing icon at the bottom of the page
Switch to Chrome Tab on the popup window and choose the required browser tab
Check the Share audio box
Click Share to start sharing

E.g. Sharing a Google Slides presentation or playing a video in a browser tab with sound can be supported on the latest version of Google Chrome browser.

Please check our detailed guide on sharing Powerpoint presentations to share Slides like a Pro.

Note: Firefox browser doesn’t support sharing a tab with Sound yet.

Tip: From the Backstage, you can see the comments from attendees in the Event chat to answer questions and interact with the attendees.

Stage tutorial