Best practices: How should I set up my virtual venue?

his feature requires an Advanced or Premium plan, or an Enterprise account with the Events feature added.

There are numerous ways to set up your virtual venue on ZenVideo, and we know that choosing the right settings can be overwhelming. Below we’ve listed a number of questions to help guide you on which venue and space configuration is recommended based on your event requirements.

💡Tip: A venue is one type of event you can create on ZenVideo. Read about the different event types on ZenVideo and their features.

What level of privacy do you need for your virtual venue?

You can choose who can enter your venue by going to your venue settings and then selecting Privacy. You’ll find the following privacy options:

• Public: This allows anyone to enter the venue and watch your event. Note that attendees who want to interact will still need to log into a ZenVideo account.
• Public with registration: This setting allows anyone to find your venue but requires all attendees to log in and register to enter the venue, whether they intend to participate or not.
• Private: This allows you and anyone with access to view.
• Unlisted: This allows anyone with the link to view.
• Password: This allows anyone with the password to the event to view.
• Hide from ZenVideo: This allows you to make the event private to you but embeddable anywhere.

In addition to the above settings, you can determine if your venue can be embedded into other sites. If your event needs to be more secure, consider either Specific domains to allow only your site(s), or Nowhere to keep all attendees in ZenVideo. 

What kind of production elements does your virtual stage need? 

If you plan to have a main stage (e.g. a presentation) during your event, there are two ways to present to the stage within a venue space. The option you choose mainly depends on the number of people producing the event and the complexity of the production features your event needs.

• If you are a single presenter and don’t need additional elements other than showing yourself or your screen, use the Present to stage option in the bottom action toolbar of the space. You can select either My camera to put your camera on stage or select Desktop to share your screen. We support the ability to share tab audio only in Chrome and Safari browsers, and not any other browser. 
• This requires very little production preparation outside of the content you intend to present. Note that there are no native additional production elements using this method, such as graphics.

• If you are producing the event by yourself or with a small remote team, but need more basic production elements such as graphic overlays, video playback, or a few virtual guest speakers, select Production studio in the space’s action bar to use our web-based production tool.
• This gives your event more production value and while keeping your workflow within the ZenVideo platform.

• If your event requires more complex on-site production elements such as multiple cameras and advanced audio controls, select RTMP from the action bar and input the URL and Stream Key into your preferred livestreaming encoder, such as Livestream Studio, OBS, Wirecast, or another live encoding tool. 
  • This takes your production workflow out of the ZenVideo platform and sends your encoder’s stream output to the space’s stage. Each space in your venue has its own Stream URL and Stream Key.
  • Note: If you use Livestream Studio, you will need to select RTMP as the streaming provider, not ZenVideo. The ZenVideo option currently does not integrate with venues.
• If you are using venues for hybrid events, refer to How to use venues for a hybrid event.

Will your event have multiple tracks or concurrent sessions?

While your venue will have one space by default, consider creating multiple public spaces before your venue doors open if your event has multiple tracks or concurrent breakout rooms. If there is a set schedule that attendees should stick to, go to your venue’s advanced settings and turn off Create public space and 1:1 Video/Voice chat to keep attendees within the spaces you’ve set up. Keep in mind each space can have its own set of customized settings allowing for different levels of participation (discussed below).

When creating multiple spaces, be sure to set one space as your primary space that all attendees will arrive in when they first enter your venue, such as a welcome lobby or a main stage. You can do this by going to the desired space’s settings and selecting Set as primary at the top of the panel. By default, your primary space will be created and ready to customize when you first create your venue.

How do you want your audience to participate in your event space?

If you want to allow audio/video participation from your attendees, you have a variety of access options you can configure for each space. Which access settings you should enable depends on the nature of your event, but below are general guidelines based on the number of attendees you expect.

You can access the space settings panel by clicking on the pencil icon located on the space logo, OR click on Edit this space within the action toolbar. 

Small audience, informal interactive event: Enable Open mic and Open stage.

• This allows all attendees to participate and present to the stage at will, rather than only admins.
• This is ideal for interactive discussions such as an informal Q&A or a team meeting.

Medium to large audience, formal presentation with interactive segment: Turn off Open mic and Open stage, turn on Allow raise hand

• This will prompt attendees to select Raise hand in the action toolbar in order to become a participant in the venue space.
• Event moderators will be notified and can then open the attendee’s profile and invite the attendee to speak, turning on the attendee’s camera and microphone. Moderators can then disable the participant’s camera and microphone.

Large audience, no interactive segments: Disable most attendee participation options in the Edit space menu.

• For a more formal event that should not be interrupted, turn off the Open mic, Open Stage, and Allow raise hand settings.
• In the venue’s Advanced Settings, turn off the Create public spaces and 1:1 Video/Voice Chat settings to keep all attendees in your primary space.
• Make sure that anyone who should be able to speak in the venue and present to the stage is an admin on your team account.

If you opt to disable video/audio participation, you can still gauge your audience’s engagement with the following space settings:

Enable chat

• Chat supports emojis, image uploads, voting on messages, and message replies.
• If you need your audience’s full, uninterrupted attention on your space’s stage, consider disabling chat.

Allow reactions

• Reactions are animated GIFs that appear over an attendee's avatar temporarily.
• Reactions can be configured to be unmoderated, allowed within a certain audience maturity rating, a fixed set (i.e. only admins can create new reactions), or disabled entirely.

Third-party widgets

• You can embed third-party widgets such as sli.do or a Twitter feed.

How do you want your audience to interact with each other during your event?

If your event is meant to be a networking opportunity or has an unconference format, consider allowing attendees to create and configure their own spaces within your venue (Venue Settings > Advanced). 

• Create public spaces will allow all attendees to create spaces that any other attendee can find and enter. 
• If you prefer to keep all attendees interacting within one primary space, toggle off both of these settings.

When you enable chat in a space, you also give your attendees the ability to start direct chats with other attendees, separate from the public group chat. You can turn off 1:1 Text Chat abilities in the main venue settings if you prefer to keep all chat conversations in public spaces.

Need help troubleshooting or more guidance? 

If you run into issues, please contact support for assistance.