Using Studio as a speaker

The below article is designed to provide guidance to invited live session (webinar) speakers or panelists.

The below references should also have been shared with you previously as part of preparing you to speak at a live session:
Make sure you comply with the technical requirements for speakers
Make sure you are familiar with how the interactivity options work in Studio

Arriving in the waiting room

When a speaker accesses the live session, using their invitation link, the room will typically be open in “preview” mode, and therefore the live stream is not being broadcasted.

The speaker will appear in what is referred to as the “waiting room”. The “waiting room” in Studio is located below the main preview window.

As shown below for “Speaker 1”, you will see the thumbnail with the name that you entered when joining the live session as well as your initials:

At this point you are not on the stage.

The host and any other speakers can see you in the waiting room, and you can see them.
The host and any other speakers cannot hear you, and you cannot hear them unless they are on the stage.

You can use the private chat to the left of the screen in Studio to communicate with the host and all other speakers that are in the session (whether they are live on stage or in the waiting room).

If speakers are on the stage, you'll be able to see and hear them on the stage.
When the host or moderator adds you to the stage, the host and any other speakers will be able to see you on the stage. You will need to unmute your microphone for people to and hear you:

Using the private speaker chat

As a speaker, once you have entered the room, you can communicate with all the people in the room using the private chat located to the left of the screen in Studio:

When you send a message via the private chat, it will be seen by all the people present in the room, whether they are in the waiting room or on stage, and whether the room is in “preview” mode or live.

Any person in the room can at any time add messages to the private chat, whether they are in the waiting room or on stage, and whether the session is in preview or live.

The private chat cannot be seen by the attendees of the live session via the app.

Controlling your camera and microphone

Using their main controls, speakers can:

• Mute/unmute their microphone
• Enable/disable their camera
• Start/stop screen sharing - only used when sharing a presentation in PowerPoint format.

Note: While the host or moderator can mute your microphone, they cannot unmute your microphone. It is therefore important that you follow the instructions that are provided via the private chat (they may ask you to unmute your microphone there).

Using their thumbnail controls, speakers can:

• Mute/unmute their microphone
• Enable/disable their camera
• Access the more ⋮ button, and change their speaker name:
  

Note: Speakers cannot see the thumbnail controls for the other speakers or for the host/moderator. They can only see their own, and those of their PowerPoint screen share - only if they are screen sharing a PowerPoint format presentation - for which they will also have a Mute/unmute button.

Controlling your presentation slides

Accessing your presentation

You may have provided a final PDF version of your presentation to share during the live session.
This presentation will be uploaded to the (1) Slides section of the Studio by the host or moderator, where you can see it. It will also be pushed to the stage by the host or the moderator at the agreed time (when you will need to present).

Before the presentation is pushed to the stage, you will be able to see it (2) in the Slides section to the left of the screen. From here, the only action you can perform is to preview (3) the slides, which can be helpful while you are waiting to be moved to the stage:

Controlling your presentation

Once pushed to the stage, either the host/moderator will control the slides, or you will.

If the live session is live and broadcasting to the audience, any slides that are pushed to the stage will become visible to the audience.

If you are the person controlling your presentation slides, you will have access to the below controls in order to show the right slide to your audience during your presentation:

Once you are done with your presentation, the host or moderator will remove your presentation from the stage.

Using polls as part of your presentation

Polls are used to gather the opinion or test the knowledge of your audience, and are a great way to keep them engaged. You may have provided the host or moderator one or more poll questions that you want to ask the audience as part of your presentation.

While only hosts and moderators can launch polls during the live session, any poll that is scheduled to be asked during the live session is visible to the speakers in the Polls section of Studio, to the right of the screen.

Here for example, you can see that there is one poll that is scheduled to be launched at some point:

When they launch a poll, the host will tell the audience that the poll will be available soon, so that they are ready to participate. Remember that there is a 30 seconds delay between when a poll is launched and when the remote attendees will be able to it. Once the poll is launched, it is marked as LIVE in Studio:

Speakers can see that the poll is LIVE in the Polls section, but they cannot see the poll on the screen in the preview.

While the poll is live, the speaker can click on the poll in the Polls section, in order to see the results as they come in:

Once all the responses have been received, the host or moderator may decide to show the results immediately to the audience, or to shop them later on. The poll will be removed from the stage by the host or moderator. The speaker will see that the launched poll in the list now has a status that says “Voted”:

Seeing and addressing Q&A questions

During the live session, it is possible that a Q&A session will take place.

If a Q&A session is scheduled to take place, the event planners will have informed you of this and may also have shared some of the questions that will be asked in order for you to prepare your responses.

Incoming questions

Q&A questions can be posted by the audience, or by the event team directly in order to cover a particular topic, and can be posted before and/or during the live session. Questions can also be moderated (approved or rejected) by the event team.

Questions that are approved by the event team, as well as any questions that were directly added by the event team, will be visible to all those present in the live session room in the Q&A section of Studio (whether they are in the waiting room or on the stage, and whether the session is in preview mode or live):

Questions pushed to the stage

Questions that are visible in the Discussion tab will typically be pushed to stage when they are being addressed by the host or speakers.

A question that is pushed to stage will appear over the main preview window, to ensure that the audience can see it and know that this is the question/topic that is currently being discussed.
The action of pushing the Q&A question to the stage is done by the moderator or host in Studio.

At this point, the host or moderator will read out the question, and potentially ask one of the speakers to provide a response.

In Studio, the speaker will be able to see the question that is currently on stage in the Q&A section, as it is marked as “ANSWERING NOW” and provide a response. The question will not be visible to the speaker in the preview in Studio:

Once questions have been discussed/pushed to stage, they are moved to the Answered tab of the Q&A.

Other ways that the Q&A section can be used during the live session

So you are aware, you also may notice that the host or moderators will use the Q&A panel in the following way:

• Providing some information to the audience
• Answering a question via the Q&A panel in writing, that may not be pushed to the stage due to a lack of time.