Live streams, stages & events

Go live to your community from a webcam or OBS, run an interactive stage with members, schedule events, and manage recordings and replays.

Going live is the quickest way to get your members together in real time — a class, a Q&A, a launch. Your community has two live formats:

	Spotlight	Stage
What it is	One presenter, unlimited viewers	An interactive session with up to 50 participants on camera
Source	Webcam or RTMP (OBS and similar)	Webcam or WHIP (OBS)
Interaction	Live chat, call-to-action, polls	Participants on stage, join requests, invites
Recording	Automatic; the replay appears in Events → Replays	On demand, saved privately to your video library

Both are started from the Start a Live Event page — click Go Live in the post composer to open it — and can be scheduled as events members see in advance.

Before you start

• Have the right access. Go Live shows for admins who have an active paid ESTAGE subscription of their own, and for anyone whose role includes Create & run streams and events.
• To use your webcam, allow your browser to use the camera and microphone when it asks.

Going live now

1. On Start a Live Event, click New Event → Go Live Now.
2. Pick Spotlight or Stage and click Start Event. The Spotlight studio or the stage opens in a new tab.

When a Spotlight stream starts, members get a push notification ("… is now LIVE! Click To Join Now").

In the Spotlight studio

The Studio View panel (Live Streaming) holds the stream's settings:

Field	What it does
Title	The name of the stream, saved when you leave the field
Channel	Where the live post appears — Main Feed or one of your channels
Access Rule	No Rule, or a custom rule members must meet to watch — see Badges, rules & paid access
Select Video Source	Webcam or RTMP

1. Choose the source:
   • Webcam — click Go Live.
   • RTMP, to stream from OBS or other software — copy the Server and Stream Key into it. The stream goes live when your software connects; until then the studio shows "Waiting for your stream…".
2. Stop Live (or End Live on the webcam controls) finishes the stream.
3. Use the Actions tab while live:
   • a call-to-action — text, a URL or a global variable — with Show CTA / Hide CTA;
   • a poll — Question, Options, Add Poll, Hide Poll.

With RTMP you also get a Live Chat Embed URL. Add it to OBS as a browser source to show the stream's live chat on top of your video — the page has a transparent background, so only the messages show.

On a webcam stream, Background effects (the sparkle button on the camera controls) changes what is behind you, on your preview and on the broadcast:

Group	Choices
Original	No effect
Blur	Light blur, Blur, Strong blur, Blur mono, Blur warm
Background filters	Your real background, recolored: B&W back, Sepia back, Cool back, Warm back, Dimmed
Backdrops	A plain or gradient background: Studio dark, Studio light, Aurora, Sunset, Graphite
Looks	A color grade over the whole picture: Vivid, Mono, Cinematic

Reset goes back to Original. Effects switch off while you share your screen. If your browser can't run them, the panel says so.

The Scheduled Events tab in the studio sets a date and time and a Channel for this stream (Schedule Event), or changes or cancels a schedule you've set (Update, Cancel).

On a Stage

• Invite Members — a link for community members (sign-in required) and a public link for everyone else (no account needed).
• Join Requests — approve or reject people asking to come on.
• Mute All / Unmute All, and mute, unmute or remove a single participant.
• Go live broadcasts the stage to the community; Broadcast Settings adjusts it.
• Record this call starts a recording (a REC badge shows); Stop recording ends it.
• Layouts: Gallery, Speaker, Multi-Speaker; Pin to focus on one person.
• Background effects, on your own camera preview, changes the background behind you — the same choices as in the Spotlight studio.
• To present from OBS, choose WHIP (OBS) as the host connection and copy the WHIP Endpoint and Stream Key. Regenerate credentials issues new ones.
• End For All closes the stage for everyone.

Scheduling an event

There are two ways to put an event on the calendar.

From Start a Live Event — New Event → Schedule an Event For Later:

1. Pick Spotlight or Stage.
2. Enter the Title, the Channel, an optional Access Rule and the Date & Time.
3. Click Schedule Event.

From Events — Create Event (on desktop) opens Add New Event, with more options:

Field	What it does
Event Type	Spotlight or Stage
Event Name, Description, image	What members see
Schedule Live Video	The date and time (in the future)
Access Rule	A custom rule from Rules, or none — see Badges, rules & paid access
Allow Participants to Join and Chat	When the room opens: at the start, or from 1 minute to 1 hour before
Channel	Where it belongs
Destination	Events Widget Only, or Events Widget + Feed

When you schedule, members of that channel get a push notification ("… plans to go live").

Scheduled events show in Scheduled Events on Start a Live Event, as a list or a calendar, with Enter Studio / Enter the Stage, edit and delete. Members see them on the Events page and in the Upcoming Events sidebar widget.

What members see on Events

The Events page has two tabs, Upcoming and Replays. It shows the events of the channel the member is in — the main feed's, or a channel's own.

• Upcoming lists scheduled events with their date and time in the member's time zone, and a Live badge on one that is streaming now. The calendar button switches between the list and a month calendar view.
• Replays shows the recordings of past streams. Open one to watch it.

Selecting an event, or its Event Details button, opens it:

• Before the room opens, a details window shows the title, a countdown, the date and time and the description. Add to calendar downloads the event as an .ics file for any calendar app — a one-hour entry with a reminder 10 minutes before. When the countdown ends, the window switches to the live event.
• Once the room is open (see Allow Participants to Join and Chat) or the stream is live, the live event opens straight away.
• An event with an access rule asks the member to sign in, and shows what it takes to get in if they don't meet the rule yet — see Badges, rules & paid access.

People who can run streams see Go To Live Studio or Enter the Stage on each event instead of Event Details, with the edit menu next to it.

Replays

When a Spotlight stream ends, its recording appears under Events → Replays. Open a replay and use Update Replay to change its Event Name, Description, Time, the Replay Video Link and a CTA Button Text.

Things worth knowing

• Removing a participant from a stage takes them off the call; they see that the host removed them. The community owner can't be muted or removed.
• Moderating any stage — not only your own — is the Mute & remove participants permission. Running streams and events is Create & run streams and events. Both can be given to a host through roles.
• Live chat is the comment thread of the live post: delete messages there as you would comments.
• Deleting a scheduled event can't be undone.