Getting Started with Live

Host a live event using Wistia.

Ready to host your first webinar? A seasoned pro? Somewhere in the middle? Wistia’s Live functionality allows you to create a live event, host it, and share the recording. You can collect viewer and attendee information, as well as analytics from the live event. Looking to send out the recording? We collect viewer analytics for this as well!

Creating a Live Event

To create a live event in your Wistia account, select “Live Events” on your All Content page. You can see a list of all live events in your account, as well as an option to “Create Event.”

You can also create an event right from the All Content page. Under the “Content” menu, click “Create” and then select “Create a Live Event.”

Following this, you can add your Title, the Date and Time, and the approximate duration of your event. You can also choose to enable your Registration page (these details can be edited later on the “Overview” page as well!).

Note

If you choose to enable registration on this page, it cannot be turned off. If you don’t enable registration here, you can always enable it later on the Registration page.

Overview Page

Click “Create Event” and you’ll immediately be taken into the Overview page for it.

Once here, you can edit the high level information for your event and add it to your calendar.

From the Overview page, you can click to “Join Event Room” as the host, or click “Copy Audience Link” to send to guests. If you’d like, you can paste this link into your browser to preview the audience view.

Event Details

From the Overview page, open the Event Details tab to add additional information about your event, including a description and thumbnail.

You may also edit the title of your event, which will be updated on the Overview page.

Further, you can enable or disable the Audience chat panel.

The backstage chat cannot be disabled, but you can adjust the audience chat settings during your Live event as well.

Once you’ve added all the details for your event, it’s time to share it with panelists and audience members.

Sharing Your Live Stream

Note

On the Advanced Plan, live events have a maximum of 500 attendees and a 2-hour time limit. For all plan details, take a look at our Pricing page.

Panelists

To share your events with Panelists, click into “Invite Panelist.” At this time, four panelists are able to join an event at one time.

Share the Panelist link, and before joining, any panelists will be asked to enter their display name, and check to be sure they’ve selected the correct Video, Microphone (input), and Speakers (output). They can turn off their webcam, mute themselves, and test everything out before joining. Once ready, click “All Set.”

Audience

Once you’ve clicked “Copy Audience Link,” you can share your live event link with anyone you’d like. You can find this link on the “Overview” page.

The event link will take an attendee directly to the event page, or prompt them to register first.

Tip

If you’d like to make sure your live event is GDPR compliant, enable Privacy Mode in your Account Settings.

Simulcasting

You can stream your live event to up to 5 additional locations, such as Facebook and LinkedIn. If you have an RTMP URL and Stream Key for the platforms you’d like to stream to, you can connect them via the “Simulcast Settings” option in your live event.

Once connected, your live event will display on the connected platforms when it goes live.

Registration

If you’d like to keep track of who’s interested in attending your event, and ultimately see who attended it, you can have any attendees sign up for your event by enabling registration.

You can send registrant information to a list within your primary integration in Wistia as well. On the registration page, click “Sync Registrations.” From here, you can select your desired list to send registrants to.

If you’d like to change lists, click “Update Registration” to select a new list.

You can also choose to keep registration open after the event has ended, so that anyone who would like to watch afterwards needs to enter their information, and you can continue collecting audience member data.

On your event’s registration page, you can select “Preview” to see how this page will look before publishing it.

It includes the name of your event, the date, and the event thumbnail.

By default, registrants will be asked for their first and last name, as well as email.

You can also select additional fields for the registration form, which include phone number, company name, job title, and/or country. On the Registration page, click “Select Form Questions” to add fields. If you are connected to HubSpot, Marketo, or Pardot, you can send this information there as well.

Note

Additional registration fields cannot be added if you have an email marketing integration connected in your account, and have this set to “Primary.”

Once registration is complete, registrants have the option to add the event to their calendar.

On your registration page, you can see how many people registered, and how many attended your event. You can also download the list of registrants to a CSV.

Delete Event

If you’d like to delete your event, click “Delete Event” and confirm your decision.

Alert

This cannot be undone.