How to add live displays to your hybrid and in-person live sessions

If you are running an in-person or hybrid event, you may wish to display your live stream, your live Q&A, and/or your polls on large screens, also known as "live displays" for your audience to see.

Live displays are associated with live sessions in the workspace, and the options available for using live displays fully depend on whether the live session is "in-person" or "hybrid".

By definition, live displays are only used by participants that are attending in-person directly at the venue, or by groups of attendees that are attending from a remote hub such as an office, or any location that is separate from the venue. They are therefore not used for "virtual" live sessions.

With this in mind, and depending on your live session type, you can choose what you want to display on your live displays. This is done when you create the live session, or via the live session settings.

For hybrid live sessions, you can choose to display:

- Interactivity & live stream: Attendees will see the live stream, and when there is a poll or a Q&A question pushed to screen, they will see that displayed on the live display instead.
- Live stream only: Attendees will not see the interactivity (polls & Q&A) at all. They will only see the live stream.
- Interactivity only: Attendees will not see the live stream at all, only the interactivity will be displayed. The rest of the time the countdown, background image or color will be visible.

For hybrid live stream displays, the live stream countdown timer will show even if you select the "interactivity only" display. Therefore, before a live stream is started, the countdown will only be removed from the display when you launch a poll or when you push a Q&A question to the screen. It will always be removed once the live stream is live.

For in-person events:

For in-person live sessions, no live stream can be added to the associated live display(s). Only the Q&A and polls (and claps if enabled) will be visible.

You can configure as many live displays as you need for each of your sessions.

If you choose to show interactivity on a live display (for hybrid or for in-person live sessions), you can also target individual polls to specific live displays, to further tailor your attendees experience based on their location and situation. You also have the option to not show a poll at all on a live display.

How to create a live display for my live session?

When you create your live session, or after creating the live session (via the settings), you can configure any live displays that you need.

Note: Live displays tend to be used in a landscape orientation, but can also be used in a portrait orientation. When using a live display in portrait orientation, please make sure that you use a background color, and do not use a background image. Also, make sure that you always carefully test the set-up on-site to ensure that everything works as expected.

Start by configuring a first live display for your live session:

1. Enable the Live display toggle.
   
   
2. Choose the Background of the live display. This is mostly visible when no stream is displayed on the screen, for example if you decide to only display the interactivity (Q&A + polls) on the live display. You can choose between using a fill color, or uploading an image.
   

   If you are using a background image, you are Streaming with SpotMe Studio, and showing the live stream in the live display, we recommend that for consistency you use the same image here as the one used for the stream background.
   
   We also recommend that you adapt your background image to the size/resolution of the screen that will be used for the live display (large/high resolution screen = large/high resolution background image). Accepted files types are PNG, JPEG, recommended min. resolution is 1920px. Please also take into consideration the below safe zones when customizing your background image:

   
   A template file is available to help you with this.
   
   

3. Use the Display settings to choose what you wish to show on your live display:
   For hybrid live sessions, you can choose to display:
   - "interactivity & live stream": Attendees will see the live stream, and when there is a poll or a Q&A question pushed to screen, they will see that displayed on the live display instead.
   - "live stream only": Attendees will not see the interactivity (polls & Q&A) at all. They will only see the live stream.
   - "interactivity only": Attendees will not see the live stream at all, only the interactivity will be displayed. The rest of the time the background image or color will be visible.
   For in-person events, the only option available is to display "only interactivity".
   This means that for in person live sessions, no live stream can be added to the associated live display(s).
   
   
4. Once you have finished setting up your live display, click on Save. This will take you to the live session room.
   Next, go to the Live session's settings, and access the Live display tab. Here you can:
   - Create more live displays, by clicking on the Add another display button, or
   - See the list of all existing live displays created in the live session, and access each live display's Design, Polls, and Settings tabs.
   
   Access link: This is the URL that can be copied and shared/used to connect the actual screen that will be used for the live display to the live session.
   Design: Modify the background image or color (as explained above)
   Polls: Used to see what individual polls are targeted to the live display.
   Settings: Change what will be displayed in the live display (as explained above), and choose whether or not to display the claps on the live display.

How to target an individual poll to a specific live display?

You can target your individual live session polls to one or more (or all) of the live displays within the same live session.

Remember that the poll and the live display need to be created within the same live session in order to be connected. This can be done for in-person and hybrid live sessions, as long as the live display has "interactivity & live stream" or "interactivity only" selected in the settings tab.

Also, please note that when you create a poll in the live session, it will by default be targeted to all the live displays. Likewise, if you create a new live display within the live session, it will automatically be targeted to all the existing polls in the live sessions.

You can modify the targeting in the poll options in order to choose exactly what live display you want the poll to be displayed on:

1. Go to the poll within the live session for which you want to target to a live display.
2. In the poll settings, select the live display that you wish to target the poll to:
   
3. Click on Save poll to confirm the changes.

Once the poll is targeted to the live display, you will see the associated poll(s) listed in the live display's Poll tab:

You will also see what live displays are connected to a poll, when looking at the poll general settings in Studio, even if no live displays are connected to the poll:

How does the live display work?

Below is a basic example of what attendees can see on the live display:

Display with the live stream on the screen

Display with the Q&A question pushed to screen:

Display with poll launched:

Display with poll results:

Live display controls

The live display has the following controls that can be used:

• Play/pause button.
• Volume control.
• Go full-screen button.

Connecting a live display to a screen or projector

Live displays are connected to screens or projectors via the access link (URL), as explained above.

Simply copy the access link from the live display in the stream settings, and paste it into the relevant screen's browser to display it there.

Using live displays with stream delays

There is a natural delay (30 seconds) between things occurring at an event in-person, and what is seen/heard by attendees in the broadcasted live stream.

With this in mind, when enabling the live stream in a live display, this delay needs to be accounted for, so that attendees who are watching the live stream via the live display have the best possible viewing experience.

The below table shows exactly what is delayed or not when using the live display, with and without the "show live stream" option enabled:

* When using a live display, poll results are shown onscreen with a 30 seconds delay, so that attendees who are in a remote hub will see the poll results in-sync with the live stream.

** push notifications are sent in real-time, however there may still be an inherent delay in reaching the attendees' mobile devices, which is entirely dependent on the Apple/Google infrastructure.