How can hybrid event attendees enable or disable the live stream

The below described functionality will be available starting December 3, 2024.

As explained in the Hybrid events - participants attending virtually and in-person article, when delivering a hybrid event or live session, you will use the "Attending" field in the Backstage user profile to identify how participants will be attending your event.

Attendees will either be attending in-person (physically present) or virtually (by viewing a broadcasted live stream):

• Attendees that are joining in-person will by default not see a live stream when they access the live session via the app, whereas attendees joining virtually will by default see a live stream of the session in the app.
• Attendees that are joining virtually, when experiencing the interactivity options, will experience the timing delay that is inherent to the live stream broadcast, whereas attendees that are joining in-person (without a live stream) will not experience that interactivity delay.

To provide additional flexibility during events, we will now give the attendees the ability to enable or disable the live stream in the live session in the app.

This means that even if an attendee is identified as "in person" via the "Attending" field, they have the option to enable the live stream for a live session via the app. Likewise, if an attendee is identified as attending "virtually", they can also disable the live stream.

Some scenarios where this can be useful are:

• An attendee was planning to attend in person, but was prevented from joining at the last minute and is forced to attend remotely.
• An attendee is at the venue in-person, but the main hall is full and the attendee cannot access it.
• An attendee was not planning to attend in person, but at the last minute is able to attend, and can therefore disable the live stream in their app in order to use the interactivity in a more comfortable manner.

Important: Should an attendee decide to enable or disable the delivery of the live stream for a live session, this will not change the value populated in the "Attending" field in the attendee's user profile in Backstage. It will therefore not affect any targeting that is configured in Backstage based on the "Attending" field, and it will not change the way the attendance is tracked for that attendee, or the value in the "Attendee type" column in the attendance report. The only change is that stream will be enabled/disabled in the app for that attendee and for that specific live session, and that the app will remember the attendee's choice (to enable or disable the stream) for any other live sessions that they join.

Notes:
- Attendees can enable or disable the stream for a live session before or during the live session, but not once it has ended. The action of enabling or disabling the stream is effective immediately.
- Attendees can enable or disable the stream for a live session, whatever their "Attending" status (in-person, virtually, or no selection). If the "Attending" user field is not populated for an attendee in Backstage, then they will by be considered as attending "virtually".
- The app will remember the attendee's choice (to enable or disable the stream) for any other live sessions that they join.
- Attendees can enable or disable the stream for a live session, irrelevant of the stream provider type (RTMPS, Studio, Embed).

How can an attendee enable or disable the stream?

Enabling/disabling the stream for a live session

Here, typically the attendee is set as attending "in-person", but wishes to enable the stream on the live session.

On the mobile app or on the mobile app, they can do so by navigating to the Stream tab in the live session, and then selecting the Watch stream button: