Creating a venue requires an Enterprise account with the Events add-on.
Any space in your virtual venue can include a virtual stage, which is ideal for events that include a one-to-many presentation such as an internal company town hall or a live performance.
Any venue admin can present on the stage in any space. Learn more about participation permissions for your attendees.
There are three ways to present to a stage within a venue space: directly within the space window, with a third-party encoder, or with our web-based production tool. This article will walk you through how to use all three methods. If you're not sure which option is best for your event, we have some setup best practices to help you decide.
In this article:
Present my camera and desktop
This method is best for ad-hoc presentations such as sharing your screen during a team meeting.
To present within the venue space:
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select Present to stage.
- The top two options are My camera and Desktop. Select your preference.
- If you choose Desktop, you will be prompted to choose what specifically on your desktop you wish to share (e.g. a screen, a window, or a specific application). Choose your preference and select Share.
- You can switch between My camera and Desktop as needed.
- Your presentation selection will appear in a live player for your audience within that venue space.
As the presenter, you may be switched to the ‘picture-in-picture’ view setting to prevent an undesired mirror effect. You will also see a “You are presenting” notification at the top of the venue space.
To stop presenting:
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select Present to stage.
- Select Stop.
- Your presentation will stop and open up the stage for other presenters.
Present via RTMP
You can manage your stage presentation via an external encoder such as Livestream Studio or another software if you prefer.
Before your event, be sure your network firewall is configured per our recommendations to ensure your encoder can communicate with your venue on Vimeo.
Recommended encoder settings.
The player inside the venue currently does not support adaptive streaming, meaning each attendee will receive the same resolution and bitrate that you are sending through. Because of this, we recommend that you encode your stream at 720p, 30 frames per second, and 2-5 Mbps to maximize the bandwidth an average attendee’s internet can handle. Learn more about the technical differences between venues and other event types on Vimeo.
To stream to a venue stage via RTMP
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select RTMP. This will activate an RTMP connection.
- The menu will refresh. Select Copy stream URL to copy the RTMP URL to your system’s clipboard and paste it into your encoder’s URL field.
- In your venue space, select Copy stream key to copy the stream key to your system’s clipboard and paste the key into your encoder’s stream key field.
- Start streaming from your encoder.
- Your encoder’s output will appear on stage in your venue space and you can proceed with your event.
To stop streaming to the stage, you can either:
- Stop the stream in your encoder, or
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select RTMP, then Stop.
⚠️ Note: The RTMP connection will time out if it’s inactive for longer than five minutes, so we recommend activating the RTMP stage within the space when you’re ready to go live. If this happens, use the Stop option in the action toolbar and then select RTMP to reset the connection. The RTMP URL and stream key for that space will not change.
Present via browser-based production studio
You can use our web-based production tool to include more production elements such as guest speakers, graphics, and prerecorded videos in your event.
💡Tip: This works best if you have one person operating the production and at least one other moderating the venue.
To stream via our browser production tools:
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select Production studio.
- You will see a message indicating you will leave the venue; we do not recommend having the venue and production environment open on the same system. Click Ok to proceed.
- You will be brought into the web-based production tool for your venue’s space, with your camera as the default scene. From here you can configure all the production elements of your event including graphics, videos, invite guest speakers, and audience interaction elements.
- When you are ready to present to the venue stage, click Start event in the upper right corner.
- After a moment, the scene in your stream output will appear on your venue’s stage and you can proceed with your event.
To stop your browser stream, you can either:
- Click End event in the upper right corner of the web-based production tool, or
- Navigate to the action toolbar and select Production studio, then Stop.
💡Tip: You can navigate back to your venue page using the navigation links at the top of the web-based production tool.