Launching Your Livestream and Virtual Event

Best practice:  Send Invitations to Virtual to your registered guests the morning of (or even the night before) as both a reminder that your event is imminent and to prevent your supporters from wondering (and reaching out to ask) how they are supposed to join.  Then send another invitation an hour prior so they'll find it at the top of their inbox.

If you want to edit the message between the first and second send, you can edit the template at Site Settings > Events > Virtual Events > Attendance and Access.

Optional:  If you want to promote a generic link which anyone can use to view your livestream, you can also enable the public option (they will still need to create an account if they wish to bid/donate/chat).

Go to:  Auction Night > Virtual Control Panel > Controls and use the buttons provided to specify which Virtual Screen is live:

• Offline - a boring white screen that simply states that the Virtual Event is not active.
• Pre-Event - Displays images/text, pre-recorded videos and the Chat functions - but does NOT display items and bid/donation fields.    Designed as a landing page where your guests can gather prior to the event - so change the display to this screen before you send out your first invitations so supporters testing their personal links will get a preview of the event.
• Virtual - Adds the Item Section and Bid/Donate fields
• Post-Event - designed to acknowledge supporters and provide instructions/access to pay.

The Setup Video button provides access to the settings you'll need for your Livestream.  If you're using external software to produce your livestream feed - you'll make the feed "live" (eg sending it to your event site) in the external software.

If you're using the Built-in Streaming via single webcam option, you'll click on the Open Broadcast Studion button > Start Livestream when ready.

Either way:  your livestream feed will display in Preview mode on the control panel.  When you're ready - use the Preview to Live slider to make the Livestream visible on the public screens.