Preparing meeting before guests join

[blinky]

Hi. I help with a charity in India. We are planning to co-host a zoom meeting between our partners in India, who will be presenting various items (like songs and dances) , and sponsors here in our country.  This will be a first for all of us.

We would like to start the meeting say 30mins early with our partners, to sort out any technical difficulties, before the sponsors join.  What is the best way to facilitate that?  Specifically,  1/ Should we schedule meeting to start 30mins early, but advise sponsors the later time for them to join?   2/ I guess I need we need to use waiting room feature, so we can admit sponsors when we are ready and prevent them joining early.  Is that right? We were going to avoid using waiting room as people may arrive late and we might miss seeing them in waiting room  Also, 3/ what is difference between lobby and waiting room on zoom 

Also, our partners will be streaming their items via Youtube, as they are used to and set up for that.  So we plan to share our screen of the items being played through Youtube. If there are buffering issues etc we will also share the youtube link so sponsors can watch directly via Youtube.  4/ Any suggestions to help this work better?

[ZoomBulla]

Hello Blinkly,

I would first suggest a show-flow be created, a simple spreadsheet show who is doing what, when, presenters speakers, etc.  

If this will not be an interactive session for all the attendees I would strongly recommend using Zoom Webinar, this would allow for only your panelist/presenters the opportunity to speak and attendees to only watch and listen.  It will also allow for panelist/presenters to host a practice session before going live with the event.  Each panelist/presenter will have a link that is different from the regular attendees.

If Zoom Meeting is the only option, then it will be more about logistics and managing the event. If it's possible to do a dry-run before the event day it would be helpful.  If you only have a 30 min window before the event it's a short window if something is working well and you have to spend time troubleshooting.

As part of your show-flow each presenter should join early to do a sound/video check, lighting, background, etc. The team should also agree on a method to communicate in the background (Group Chat, audio conference).

As for your meeting scheduling options for a Zoom Meeting, 

1. Send the scheduled meeting invite to all attendees with the correct start time

2. Request presenters to join 30-45 minutes early using correct names

3. Delegate someone to admit them as they join early

4. Wrap up all testing 5-10 mins before going live

5. Test your live stream platform early as well 

6. Utilize a holding slide/page while waiting to start/go live

7. Ensure waiting room is enabled for the meeting - you can "admit all" sponsors/attendees when ready to go live

8. Ensure everyone has a copy of the show-flow and follows along

9. Things may go off-script so be prepared to manage that

Remember have fun, if you are prepared it will go a lot smoother.

Regards: ZoomBulla