We are really excited to introduce our speaker Backstage: an easy and powerful tool to power your streams. 

With this in-house backstage, Swapcard becomes even more all-in-one, so it reduces the set-up time and the number of providers you need to deal with. 

From everyday in-person streaming to professional keynote broadcasting, Backstage can do all this and more.

Using our best technology and our HD low latency stream RTMP protocol (Swapcard streaming), Backstage is closing the gap (and the need) for a third-party studio or streaming app.

The goal of Backstage is to provide a tool to generate and edit live streams into Swapcard by inviting speakers to the session and deciding which speaker takes the stage.

Up to 99 speakers can be invited and 16 at a time can share the center stage!

To enrich the streams, Backstage allows users to share moderator and participant screens.

Two versions of Backstage are available right now: one for moderators and one for speakers. Moderators are the creators of sessions and therefore have the option to create a Backstage session and invite speakers. Speakers can then join to start participating in an event app session.

Professional hardware can be used to enhance our 1080 HD videos by selecting any connected hardware like mics and cameras. This equipment can be selected and swapped out while on a stream.

Seamless live streaming with high-definition video and crystal-clear audio is of course at the center of Backstage, allowing a low-latency stream with integrations for the community to quickly participate and interact.

Full and easy integration with Swapcard Studio allows users to create a session and start streaming in a matter of seconds.

To access Backstage as a creator, simply create a session and select “Live Backstage” : 

Users added in the studio session as speakers can participate as they join.

Speakers can easily join via an invite link or by simply opening the event app and navigating to the session. Once in the session, invited speakers will see a button prompting them to join the stage. Clicking on the “Join Backstage” button will redirect the speaker Backstage. Now, the speaker only has to wait for the moderator or directly join the Backstage session.

Speakers and moderators alike have the option to select hardware while in the waiting room or when in the stream. They can also toggle mute or unmute and turn the camera on or off.

Moderators can decide who takes the center stage and who is on the stream by simply toggling the user switch to on. A default layout template will be available for now, and different ones will be available at later dates.

The option to go live or end a stream on the event app is also for the moderators to decide by simply clicking the “Go live” button in Backstage. There is no need to be present in Studio. If moderators wish to have control of ramp credentials, stream data, and so on, they can continue using all of the existing features in Studio for RTMP.

Both Speaker and Moderator versions are accessible at any time from mobile and web.

Screensharing into the Backstage

As a moderator or a speaker, you can share your screen with Backstage.

On the Backstage platform, a new button just below the main stage allows you to share your screen:

Once you click on it, a pop-up from your browser will ask which screen or window you would like to share, and then it will appear in the bottom list as shown below:

At any time, while any speaker is sharing their screen, the moderator (and moderator only) will be able to invite the person screen-sharing on the main stage.

The Main Stage layout will then automatically adapt to allow for maximum space of the screen sharing.

Available features now in our first version

Moderator view with functionalities:

• Toggle speakers on or off stage
• Mute/unmute self
• Mute/unmute speakers
• See participants in speaker reel
• Set moderator on or off stage
• Add up to 16 speakers to live canvas
• Set up a studio session with Backstage functionality
• Go live on event app from Backstage
• Invite users within a community from Studio to participate in Backstage session
• Stream to event app using Swapcard RTMP
• Option to select a third-party provider if Backstage is not a preference
• Closed captioning in stream through Backstage
• Screensharing

Speaker view with functionalities:

• Jump from event app to Backstage as speaker, if invited
• Mute/unmute self
• Stream to event app using Swapcard RTMP
• Closed captioning in stream through Backstage
• Views depending on if speaker is on live canvas or in waiting room
• Waiting room
• Waiting view for speaker
• Screensharing

Upcoming features

Backstage will continue to add features in the future

• Private chat among moderator and speakers
• Display the session live discussion (chat, questions, polls) in backstage
• Select from a list of banner formats and be able to enter text to show in stream 
• Select from a list of template formats to change the format of the stream 
• Upload a logo and a background to the stage
• Upload a video file to stream it live
• Backstage as a sandbox (for pre-recording a session)

As you may know, we are actively working on the redesign of email management from the studio. In this first phase of the redesign we have improved email editing with the following changes :

• Redesign of the navigation which is now on the right of the preview with tabs to be more easily usable
• Clicking on a block now opens the associated tab in edit mode
• The list of available blocks is now clearly visible and each block can be added with a simple click
• You can now drag and drop the blocks to the desired location
  

A new tab in My Event to discover all your recommendations!

Trying to find what you’re looking for can lead to unnecessary time spent scrolling when you could be meeting the right person, chatting to the right exhibitor, or going to the right session. Swapcard understands and has added a feature to help cut down on wasted time.

You can find this feature in your My Event tab on Web.  By clicking “My AI recommendations”, you will find various recommendations, including:

• People matches
• Exhibitor matches
• Session matches
• Item matches

💡 Additionally, by clicking on a People match, you will discover details and explanations about why this person is recommended to you.

For organizers, by default, you will always find this new tab in My event. However, you can also disable it by clicking Studio > Event builder > Content display > My event (edit) > Data. You can also select which matches you want to display.

If you can’t find relevant recommendations, there could be a few reasons. First, if you’re a new event member, you’ll only be able to see accurate recommendations after completing your profile and using the app by bookmarking or making connections. Your first recommendations will be based on the popularity of these elements, so if you want personalized recommendations, use the app!

Dynamic values in an email text editor are a powerful tool that can help you personalize your emails and make them more effective. 

These values are now displayed as tags, which can be inserted into your email text to automatically insert information such as the recipient's name or the date of the email and more.

Sometimes meeting requests awaiting a response will need to be removed to free up the time slot. To help organizers easily manage this situation, we are releasing a new functionality in the Organizer Studio that will give them the option to cancel pending or confirmed meetings in bulk.

The organizers can choose whether they want to notify the participants that their meetings have been canceled. If yes, the participants will receive a notification in the app.

How does it work?

The organizers need to go to the Studio → Meetings. Here, they can select one, several, or all pending or confirmed meetings and click on “Cancel meeting(s)”.

Then, a pop-up message will allow the organizers to choose whether they want to notify participants or not.

Once the cancelation has been confirmed:

• All participants are notified if the checkbox is selected
• “Pending” and/or “Confirmed” meetings status will change to “Canceled”
• Participants’ schedules are now free to book another meeting in that time slot

An improvement has been made to the Analytics Dashboard in the Studio, where organizers can now view any groups that have been deleted in the “Filter by group” dropdown list.

In the default view, all “Current groups” will be pre-selected. Organizers will have the option to unselect any of the current groups if needed, or to also select some or all of the “Deleted groups”. The names of the deleted groups will be displayed, along with the number of users that belonged to the group. Deleted groups which did not contain any users will not be displayed in the dropdown list.

Please Note: When no group is selected from the list, the active user number takes into consideration active users from “All groups”. This includes those that currently exist and the groups that have been deleted previously. The ability to view deleted groups in the dropdown will provide an accurate representation of the Active Users to the organizers.

A newsfeed is a place where you can engage with your audience all year round, which is why we’re excited to announce that you’ll soon be able to link any of your event’s newsfeeds to your community newsfeed!

How can I link an existing newsfeed channel to my community newsfeed?

From the studio, in the community section, organizers can access the “Data” tab when they create a newsfeed view.

Then, using the search bar, you can find existing feed channels that have been created from your events. Select the one you want to link to make it appear on your community newsfeed.

The name of the event appears under each feed channel.

To remove a channel from the selection, simply hover over the channel and click on “x.” The channel will be removed from the selection and will still be available on the linked event.

ℹ️ Any member of your community will be able to view, post, comment, and react to any newsfeed you’ve made accessible in the community view, regardless of their event settings.

In our goal to make the studio ever more efficient and easy to use, we have updated the UI of the event list.

This list now displays the events under 3 columns:

• Name of the event
• Date of the event
• Publication status

A new filter that allows you to display only the events you want to see according to your preferences is now also available  :

This latest community update will help you easily navigate around your Community by recommending similar exhibitors, sessions, or items to the topics you like.

How does this work?

Similar to events, the information a user provides trains the AI to find connections between all topics you like in the Community.

Of course, similar recommendations will respect the restricted groups and restricted content set up by the organizer and will exclude them accordingly. There is also the option to switch on/off similar recommendations at both the Event level and the Community level.

Which recommendations does this include?

They include:

• Similar session recommendations
• Similar item recommendations
• Similar exhibitor recommendations

At Swapcard, we want to give organizers more control over recommendations. That’s why we’ve given organizers the ability to enable or disable the following session recommendations:

• Personalized recommendations (carousel)
• Similar recommendations (”you may also like”)

The ability to disable similar session recommendations can be helpful, for example, in case the organizer is planning lunch/coffee breaks and doesn’t want similar sessions to be displayed for them.

As for the other similar recommendations, organizers can change the settings in the Studio → Content → Sessions → Sessions settings → Similar recommendations. Here, they’ll be able to see the toggle to enable/disable similar recommendations.

By default, the toggle will be switched on.