Virtually there.

With more and more events taking place virtually, it adds pressure on organizers to host events that are engaging, interactive, and fun. Not being able to see all the different rooms that are available at a glance makes guests feel isolated and disconnected from the whole event. With no corridor greetings, no cafe chats, no bumping into people in the waiting lobby, the virtual events don't offer the same value proposition.

SignalWire Events presents an elegant solution to make remote events effective, collaborative, and fun. The biggest part of the solution is the ability to see all the rooms on one single page - the homepage. Treat the homepage as your physical venue, if you will; you’ll be able to get a complete view of what’s going on in the event - Karl is speaking at Auditorium A, Ben is conducting a seminar in Room 2, guests are gathering for karaoke at the Lounge, networking room is filling up with guests. Being able to see all the ongoings of the event makes you feel included and part of the event.

You can enable guests to join any of the rooms by simply clicking the Join button. It allows guests to join the room for the entire duration or pop in and out for a quick introduction or to share a story. No meetings need to be scheduled and no invite links need to be sent for each room to all the guests.

You can also create a new room instantly should you want to have a separate temporary room for a quick matter. You may invite others to this room by sending them a link or asking them to find the room on the homepage like the rest of the rooms.

Being able to join and create rooms quickly provides organizers confidence that there is a backup plan in case extra space is needed.

A bird’s eye view of the rooms on the homepage mimics a real physical event and provides a more natural and human experience.

Your virtual events should be just as dynamic as IRL. Dedicated presentation space, networking areas, and greenrooms are a must-have for any event. Changing links, awkward silences, and rigid presentations with hidden audiences just aren't going to cut it, a successful event requires tools designed for hosting your event your way.

SignalWire Events is a dedicated virtual events space that can be customized to the way you run your event, whether it's a large fundraising banquet or a small sales kick-off meeting. You can create as many different virtual rooms as you need and customize them to the way your event is laid out. These rooms can be private for green rooms and VIP areas or open to the public for large presentations and networking events.

Rooms are easy to customize so you can design your online event from top to bottom. For example, you can create one room as a private preparation area for important speakers and another as a lounge to host networking parties! Each room is customizable with its own imagery, settings, and options, so the possibilities are endless.

Rooms in an IRL event venue don’t move around or disappear after midnight, so why would the rooms in your virtual space? Each room is available to you 24/7 and has an invite link that never changes. That means every attendee knows exactly where to go so that you can skip the tedious task of sending out a new link every hour and focus on what’s really important.

Rooms increase interactivity by crushing the idea that virtual events mean watching a presenter in isolation. It's easy for attendees to hop in and out of rooms, just like you would in a physical event space. For example, attendees can hop out of sessions to discuss big ideas in the lounge!

In addition to permanent rooms, SignalWire Work also has temporary rooms that can be created on the fly and disappear when nobody is in them. When temporary rooms are enabled, users can type any room name into the dialer and that room will be automatically created. Temporary rooms are a great way to host impromptu breakout sessions and mimic the idea of “stepping out into the hallway” for a quick and private discussion with a colleague.

In these remote times, most events are taking place over virtual platforms and most of them offer a contrasting experience from a physical event. One example is of viewing who is at an event before entering the main hall. How many times at a physical event did you enter a room blind without knowing if the room is empty or full?

SignalWire offers this very fundamental problem by offering Video Previews. You can view the live video preview of all the rooms on the homepage; you can see all the attendees in the room, any screen that might be shared, or a live view of a speaker or a host. Having this video preview allows you to get a sneak peek into the room before you join it. It also ensures you join the right room and are prepared to greet everyone - no surprises.

Video Previews are also a great way for the host to feel more connected to the audience and also for the audience to feel connected to each other. Watching them all on the homepage in different rooms gives you an experience that is close to being in a physical space where you can see all the attendees at the same venue. It allows you to drop in to say hi to someone who might be alone in the room or join a room where everyone is laughing to know what the joke was! You do not feel left out and feel very much part of the event, which is critical in a virtual setting.

Room Navigator is an intuitive tool that provides quick access to several room controls, such as, instantly joining or transferring to other rooms and inviting attendees to your room, with just a click.

What can you use it for?

In an event with several attendees, especially if they are unfamiliar with each other, your name is often the first connection they make. Not having names displayed properly and having to search for them makes it cumbersome and ineffective.

Attendee Name Tag appears in the lower third section and is a constructive way to display your name. This clearly lets other attendees know who you are.

Companies may choose to change and customize the Attendee Name Tag to display any desired information; be it a name, email address, company name, etc. You can also customize the tag to display a logo (graphic) as well as part of the tag. This could be very useful when there are several attendees from different companies; at a glance, everyone would be able to see who is from which company and other desired information on the Attendee Name Tag.

Raise hand is a social tool that notifies all participants in a room that you have something to add to the conversation. Raising your hand highlights your video with a bright green border, making it easy to participate in a discussion without interrupting.

Easily toggle Raise Hand on and off from the control panel at the bottom of the room.

Raising your hand displays your name at the top of the Participant List, making it easy for all members of the room to see who has something to say. Keep Q&A sessions out of the chat; Raise Hand is a great way to identify who has a question for your panelists and presenters so attendees can ask questions out loud and in real-time for a more engaging experience.

We can’t interrupt an event speaker when we have something to say; informative add-ons, questions, side conversations, or funny jokes have a place, even when you’re on mute.

Our built-in Group Chat allows members of a room to communicate with each other through text (and emojis). Group chat is a great way to ask questions during a presentation, collaborate, or even punctuate a moment with a GIF.

Group chat settings can be customized to fit your style of event. For example, the chat can be set to be seen only by event moderators and leaders so that Q&A sessions can be carefully curated.

When in a meeting with multiple people, you sometimes want to send a message to a single participant without sending it to the other participants in the meeting. An important message, a training tip, a funny joke, are just some of the reasons why you’d need to send a private message to a participant.

Private Voice Messaging allows you to do just that. Using a Private Voice Messaging feature, you can send a voice message to individual participants. You can type the message you wish to send, and the message will be converted to a voice message when the recipient hears it.

There are several use cases where Private Voice Messaging can be essential.

• It can be used to convey an important message in a meeting or presentation without anyone else hearing it.

• This feature is most useful when training a sales rep or a new employee. While on call with a client, the manager can send private voice messages to the trainee to help with the meeting.

• Having a little bit of fun during work meetings has proven to increase productivity and build a stronger culture. Send your colleagues fun quotes and jokes during meetings using the private voice messaging feature.

Easily share your screen with attendees for engaging events. Share presentations, applications, and even audio directly into the room.

Share audio

• Stream your audio directly through your screen share. Easily share videos and music with your team directly from your web browser.

Control the Layout

• Easily control where your screen share appears in the room layout. Make your screen full screen for easy viewing, split the screen with your video for more intimate presentations, or even hide your screen altogether to stream music into the room.

Share an application

• Share a specific browser tab or application; it’s easy to share only what you want to. Don’t worry about slack notifications interrupting your presentation, it's easy to control your presentation or demo so it's exactly the way you want it.

You can view all the attendees present in the room and can alter settings such as:

Audio controls

There are several controls you can manage for a smooth audio experience. You can not only mute/unmute all or individual participants but also adjust settings to make a participant louder or softer, remove their background noise, and enable their echo cancellation.

Grant moderator

Should you need to leave the room or let someone take charge of the event, you can give moderator privilege to one or more participants on the go with a click on a button.

Private messages

Any attendee can send a private audio message to another attendee. All you have to do is type out the message and the recipient hears it as an audio message.

Remove participant

A moderator has an option to remove any participant from the room, should the participant be in the wrong room or not know how to leave the room.

Name tags

Change the lower third of attendees - a name tag below their video - to display desired info (name, email, company name, etc). You may also disable these name tags when you do not need them. These can be customized at the individual attendee level.

Our technology allows for the full immersive experience with stereo sound from the right and left audio channels making the music and sounds as close to in-person as it gets.

Sometimes you just want to take a break from the event and focus on work rather than constant side-chatter. For such a time, you may enable Do Not Disturb which lets other attendees know that you are busy.

When in DND mode, you will not be able to hear anyone in the room. This lets you concentrate on another task at hand. If someone needs you, they can ‘knock’ on your profile to nudge you.

It is a perfect feature when you want to take a break from a day-long event or work on something important and yet not leave the event you’re attending.

Push to Talk tool allows you to remain muted throughout an event until you press the button to talk.

Much like a walkie-talkie, you press the button to talk. Keep the button pressed or hold down the spacebar to unmute and talk; stay muted the rest of the time, This tool is particularly useful for noisy backgrounds, where you have to keep muting or unmuting yourself.

Push to Talk is a helpful tool provided as an option in addition to the regular mute/unmute button.

It is a well-acknowledged fact that branding establishes an identity that sets itself apart and sparks a connection with its audience. The importance of branding is undeniable making it imperative to leave no stone unturned when it comes to making a mark.

Having customized headers and footers at the homepage is the first touchpoint where companies can create an impact and leave a memorable impression on their guests. When guests visit your homepage, they can see your logo or sponsor logo or any graphic on the top of the page and as well as at the bottom of the page. This creates a sense of familiarity and also lets guests know that they are on the right page.

Customizing these headers and footers to a fun graphic can also be a creative way to get more eyeballs and interaction on your homepage.

Like a physical venue, SignalWire Events has the concept of different rooms in its virtual venue where people can congregate and navigate from one room to another. Just as customizing headers and footers is important to let attendees know that they are in the right venue, customizing room descriptions are helpful in letting them know they are in the right room.

A room could be the lounge, the hallway, the green room, or anything you want. With so many rooms having clear room names and room descriptions make it easy to find the right room. The description could explain what the room is meant for, or you can also get creative and have fun with it! Auditorium - This is where the magic happens.

Moderators have production controls. Moderators typically get their access rights by being assigned a moderator PIN to specific rooms or the system moderator PIN for auto-created rooms.

There are several controls that moderators have including the ability to make any other attendee in the event room a moderator on the go with a click of a button. This is especially useful when there are several speakers as it takes the pressure off to assign roles beforehand and manage the event.

Moderators can also transfer selected or all attendees from one room to another. This makes the experience seamless for the guests as they reach the designated room without having to lift a finger.

Auto Shuffle is another feature that is accessible to the moderators. It shuffles participants' videos automatically, every few seconds, to appear on the screen. This is particularly helpful to give everyone facetime when not everyone's video fits in one screen.

Other controls that moderators have, include audio and video muting or unmuting selected or all participants, addressing and lowering raised hands of the participants, changing video layouts, recording the event, enabling ClipEEze, and many more!

Having moderator permission provides you access to several features that give you control of the event.

During large events and presentations, it can be frustrating when speakers can’t see their audience and only see themselves. Audience members are less inclined to pay attention to when they can’t be seen; for those instances when there are more people than room on a screen, auto shuffle is a great option.

When there are too many participants to be displayed at once, auto shuffle gives each audience member a turn to be seen. Auto shuffle will automatically cycle through which participants are shown in the audience area of a layout.

For large events like galas and concerts, auto shuffle is a great way to keep your audience engaged because they are active members of the event rather than flies on the screen (get it?)

During an event, we want to see an engaged audience not a sea of blank screens; it's every presenter's worst nightmare to feel like their words are falling on deaf ears.

SignalWire Events allows for custom uploaded mute images so that even when cameras are off, presenters still see a dynamic audience. Images can be creatively branded to fit the style of your event to create a unique and deliberate environment for your attendees.

For example, when attendees have their video on mute during a VIP meet and greet, blank screens and silhouettes can dampen the experience. Upload your own images with custom branding so when attendees mute their videos, the audience is full of engaging imagery that elevates the experience and sets the tone for the event.

Different kinds of events require different formats; one size does not fit all when it comes to layouts. It can be so frustrating when presenters can’t see their audience or when small discussion panels only show a few members of the group.

SignalWire Events offers dynamic video layouts for any use case. Layouts control the way user videos are organized within a room and are reflected the same for everyone in a room, that way everyone is seeing the same thing. Layouts range from a grid with everyone on display, to watch parties where users surround a large video in the middle, to presentations where selected users appear larger above an audience. You can learn more about each specific layout here.

Layouts are easy to control, so you can switch back and forth between different layouts live during your event. Design the way your round tables, webinars, concerts, or presentations look by highlighting different team members, screen shares, or media.

Layouts increase engagement because everyone in the audience is seeing the same thing. There is no need to scroll through a list of members to see them, everyone is on display making it easier than ever to participate in engaging events from anywhere.

Try the following layouts for your next event:

Stage with Audience

Stage with the audience is great for formal presentations. Choose a presenter and their video will be enlarged to put the focus on them with the audience visible below. You can even place a screen share or video next to or below your presenter.

Highlight Speaker(s)

Host Q and A sessions or an informal presentation. Whoever is speaking will appear in a larger video at the top with the audience displayed below.

Watch Party

Watch a fun or informative video together during networking events! Your chosen media will be largely displayed in the middle of the screen with your audience surrounding it.

Grid Social

Grid social is perfect for lounges and networking events. Your video screens will automatically scale so that every attendee can be seen!

ClipEEze is SignalWire’s version of a reaction GIF. Play short video clips into your room to punctuate a moment or add some pizzazz to your event. ClipEEze can be personalized to fit your events brand and to add engagement to presentations and networking events.

Examples of times to use ClipEEze:

• welcoming everyone to a presentation or networking event

• applause during a statement of recognition

• to lighten up an otherwise dull moment

• to pull back up to a higher level discussion during Q&As

• saying "Goodbye" to end the event

Upload customized ClipEEze

Uploading customized ClipEEze is a great way to reinforce branding and culture for company events, create engagement, and create those laugh out loud moments during networking events. Upload short clips from company videos, snippets of pop culture, or even applause for when a moment needs to be celebrated.

Play Full Screen

ClipEEze can be played within a room layout, as if it is its own participant, or as full screen. This ensures that the clip takes up all of the attention in the room and is especially useful for punctuating big moments like awards or a job well done.

Loop

Traditionally, a ClipEEze plays through one time before it stops automatically. Loop a ClipEEze so that it plays indefinitely until you manually tell it to stop.

Find Clips

Each ClipEEze is sorted by title. Easily find the right ClipEEze at the right moment in the search bar so you never miss a beat.

Some conversations are meant for more than just you to hear! Sometimes we want to share with larger audiences without having them in a room with us. Streaming is a great way to share your event with an even larger audience and gain an online presence.

SignalWire Events can easily live stream your presentations, concerts, and other events directly to YouTube or Facebook Live or to a local broadcast server. Whether you are streaming to a private audience or to the world, SignalWire can help.

Streaming directly from SignalWire Events ensures that your recording looks exactly how you like it, no matter what your use case. Our custom layouts, audio, and video quality are all preserved through the stream so you can control exactly how you want your presentation, webinar, or special event to look.

Try live streaming:

• Webinars

• Presentations

• Podcasts

• Concerts

• Live Demos

There is an option to choose from multiple audio and video sources to use for your events. With a click of a button, you can choose the source best suited for you and the one that will provide the best quality as well.

In today’s world where more and more events are being held in a virtual environment, it is important that controls are in place to ensure security and privacy. Especially if a screen or a document is being shared that is not meant for eyes outside of the attendees’, it becomes imperative to secure the meeting.

SignalWire offers several security features that will ensure that no sensitive content is being misused and no unwanted person is intruding in an event.

Moderator of a room can add a PIN to the room and only after someone enters the correct PIN can they be allowed to join the event, while others will be only able to see the preview on the homepage. This creates a layer of security to ensure that people who are not meant to be in the event are filtered out as they will not have the PIN information.

Sometimes, it might be necessary to lock the room altogether to disallow anyone to enter the room. This is especially useful if you’re having an important or an invite-only event and do not want any interruptions. A moderator can lock and unlock the room during the event depending on the situation. It'll appear on the homepage as a locked room and no one will be able to join it without permission.

If the event is of sensitive nature and there is no need for anyone to be aware of it happening, moderators can also hide the room altogether. This option will hide the room from the homepage and no participant will be able to search for the room or join it. Moderators can unhide a room as easily as they hide it

You can use any of these features to ensure security and privacy of an event and rest assured that there will be no interruptions or disturbance. You are protected with industry-leading security that uses the same ciphers that are used by leading financial institutions.

Nothing is more stressful during a virtual event than your keynote speaker being interrupted by an attendee's dog barking after they forgot to mute their microphone, especially if you're live streaming.

Prevent unmuting is a moderator tool designed to ensure your event runs smoothly. When prevent unmute is toggled on, your attendees will be muted and will not be able to unmute themselves until it is toggled off. This guarantees that your presentations and performances will be free from interruptions until your team is ready to hear from everyone for that question and answer session or some much earned applause.

During an event, it can be difficult to communicate with all of your attendees, especially if they are dispersed between a few rooms. With the intercom, your team can make voice announcements to every room at once so nobody misses out on important information. For example, let everyone on your events space know that there is a presentation starting in the Main Hall at 2:00pm!

The intercom is an easy and efficient way to convey information to your attendees, enforce schedules, and welcome everyone to your event.

During events, we often find ourselves wanting to share media with attendees. On SignalWire Events, it’s easy to share and watch videos together, whether it be professional or just for fun during networking parties!

All you need is a YouTube or Vimeo link and you are ready to start playing videos. SignalWire Events plays videos directly into your room so you have complete control over your event. Media controls are built into the platform so it’s easy to pause, rewind, stop, and change the volume of your video.

-Playing videos is a great way to add a little bit of fun to your event with networking watch parties or movie nights.

-Increase engagement by adding videos to presentations, playing introductions, or promotional materials.

Videos can also be set to automatically play once someone has entered a room. This can be a unique way to welcome attendees to your event and orient them on what to expect for the day.