Selecting who shows up in a webinar

[jnoppy]

In a webinar, can I have panelists and select hosts show up and hide other hosts? And when I say hide, I mean no trace--no black box, name, profile photo. 

We need one or two cohosts to be behind the scenes, monitoring chat, q&a, etc. These people should not be on view to the attendees.

Thank you!

[ZoomTestKitchen]

The behaviors built into Zoom Webinar make this pretty easy.

1. Zoom Webinar by default does not show the panelists to the audience if there is one or more active spotlights.
2. Zoom Webinar does not ever display panelists to the audience that have their cameras turned-off.

NOTE: Keep in mind that the other panelists will see these undercover panelists black box, or profile name, or live video, but the audience will not. Make sure to join the Webinar while testing as an "Attendee" so you can confirm the results before going live.

Simply instruct them to arrive with their cameras turned-off, remove their profile photo, and customize their profile display name.

[Ray_Harwood]

Hey, @jnoppy, Jeff gave you some great pointers, but I’d like to add that the use of the Spotlight feature, coupled with the ability to force Webinar attendees to see Active Speaker Only view, gives the host complete control over who is visible to the attendee audience.

While not really an advanced concept, it does take some reading, practice, and testing to get right. See these Zoom Support articles – which, though technical, have great information.

• https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362653 - Spotlighting
• https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/115004834466-Managing-attendees-and-panelists-in-a-webinar...  - see Controlling attendees views

I highly recommend that the Webinar host have a second computer available and log in as an attendee to monitor exactly what attendees see (and hear!). 

[AnnikaZoom]

In addition to the excellent comment before me, I wanted to share about functionality called Backstage. A space behind-the-scenes where your support crew can talk to each other without being heard or seen in the webinar. 
https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/4710061514381-Using-Webinar-Backstage

The host needs a Zoom Events license to be able to enable Backstage on webinars. 

[Ray_Harwood]

Great point, @AnnikaZoom!

@jnoppy – I have a Zoom Events license and would be happy to show you the pros and cons of using a Webinar with Backstage . Let me know.