Planning your Virtual Event Schedule

Key Considerations

When planning your Virtual Event schedule, there are a few key things to consider in advance.

• Do you want attendees to be able to join sessions early or during gaps in your schedule? If so, you will need to add a session to the schedule so they can join. More on this below.

• Will you have breaks in your schedule? If so, will the room completely close or will it stay open? Check out more on this below in this section: Managing Gaps in your Schedule

• How will you change stage managers throughout the day? More on this below: Passing the Stage Manager Role

• How many people can attend each session? See here for more: Live Stage Capacity

When Can Attendees join rooms?

To preface this, it’s helpful to understand that attendees can only join rooms at the exact start time in the system. So, if an session is scheduled to begin at 10 am, attendees can join at exactly 10 am and not 9:59.

Attendees will see a message similar to the one below if they attempt to join a virtual room before the exact start time.

Attendees can only join stages when they are open. If there is a gap in the schedule, attendees cannot join the stage. In the example below, attendees:

• can join the Eyre Square Stage between 10 am and 1 pm; and again from 2 pm until 4pm.
• cannot join the Eyre Square Stage before 10 am, between 1-2 pm, or after 4pm.
• can join Stage 2 between 10 and 4 pm.
• cannot join Stage 2 before 10am or after 4 pm.

How can I allow attendees to join rooms early?

If you want attendees to join the room a few minutes before the session will actually begin, you can:

• schedule the session to start a few minutes early in the system. So, instead of the session starting at 10 am, tell the system it will start at 9:45 am.
• Add a session called something like Doors Open and schedule it on the exact same stage to begin shortly before the real session. If you want only speakers to join early, you could call the session something like Speakers Only.

Below is an image of what a Doors Open session would look like in the assigner.

Below is the attendee view in the Event Space. It is very clear that they can join the stage at 9:45, but the first session actually begins at 10 am.

Managing Gaps in your Schedule 

It is very important to plan for gaps in your schedule and communicate this with your stage managers. They key questions to consider are:

• Should your stage managers keep the rooms open?
• Should your stage managers fully close the room?
• Will you have a different stage manager after the break?
• Do you want attendees who were already in the room before the break to leave or can they stay in the room during the break if it remains open?

Option 1: Stage Manager Ends the Event

You can instruct the Stage Manager to fully close the stage by ending the session.

Reminder: If a different stage manager is hosting the next session and you are using Webex, you will need to change the stage manager in Ex Ordo so the next person can open the room when it's time. Adding a Stage Manager to a Stage

Option 2: The Webex Room (stage) will be left running.

You can instruct stage managers to simply keep the room open during the break.

Please note that attendees will not be automatically kicked out of the meeting room. The stage manager should ask everyone to leave or start a practice session to ensure attendees do not see or anything that was unintentionally shared during the break. See this article for more details: Practice sessions: Your Virtual Green Room

If the stage manager after the break will be a different person, the current stage manager will need to pass the stage manager role to them inside of Webex. The new stage manager must join the room before the break in this case.

Passing the Stage Manager Role

For a smooth transition of the Stage Manager role from person to person that doesn’t interrupt your live event, it’s important for you to you communicate with Stage Managers what they need to do once it’s their turn to manage.

The Stage Manager will either need to:

1. Start a Stage through the Ex Ordo platform (which instantly makes them the Stage Manager/Host in Webex Events) or; 
2. Join a Stage that's currently Live as an Attendee and be promoted to Stage Manager/Host by the existing one

Updating the Stage Manager on Ex Ordo

If a room is going to fully close and a different person is set to open it later on, you must update the stage manager in Ex Ordo. This article below goes through the steps to update the stage manager in Ex Ordo: How to change stage managers already assigned to a stage day

Passing the stage manager role inside of Webex

The Webex room must be fully closed In order to update stage managers in Ex Ordo. If your schedule is continuous and the room does not close, you can instruct your stage managers to follow up the steps below when it is time for a new person to take over.

1. The new stage manager must join the room before breaks if there are any.
2. Inside of Webex, the current stage manager should promote the new person from attendee to host. Check out this article on promoting attendees for more details.

Live stage capacity

Live stages have a maximum capacity of 1,000 attendees. So if you're planning to host a large plenary session live on stage and you're expecting around a thousand attendees, it's important to note that some may not be able to join. Once an event is full, any attendees prevented from joining would need to wait until someone leaves and a space opens up.