What I then found is that when I ran my first live event (as a test) there were a few things that I had no idea how to complete it. I thought it would be good to have a follow up blog post on how to run the live event.

In my previous blog post I demonstrated how to setup and configure a live event.

Microsoft Teams – Creating/Hosting a Live Event for User Group Meetings

Starting the Live Event

The first thing I could not figure out was how to start the Live Event. I went into the meeting, clicked Join but then I just had this screen

If you look above it says , which initially had me very confused.

Not only that but on the right-hand side the Start button was not clickable

To get the Live Event started something first had to be shared. Things could be shared by myself (Producer) or another person (Presenter)

I had to do the following to be able to start the Live Event.

  • In the Live event I clicked on Share
  • This opened the familiar dialog I am used to when using Microsoft Teams.
    • I selected my running presentation
  • I then clicked on Content
  • After clicking on Content, it then sent it to the Queue
  • I then clicked on Send live to send it to the live event broadcast
  • Now I can see the content on the Live Event screen, and I got the option to Start
  • I then clicked Start, which confirmed if I wanted to start the live event now, once it starts it cannot be restarted.
    • I clicked Continue
  • One thing to note is that the Live Event does this via a Content Deliver Network (CDN). This means that there will always be a delay from what I am talking about to what the attendees see when they are viewing the live event.
  • Here is a screenshot below of the Live Event running from an attendee’s view

Ending the Live Event

Once I was finished with the Live Event, I then stopped it with the steps below.

  • I was prompted to be 100% sure that I wanted to stop the Live Event, because once it is stopped it cannot be restarted
  • I clicked on End live event
  • I could then see that the Live event has ended.
  • The attendees would also see that the live event had ended as shown below
  • I then stopped sharing my screen and I could then exit the Live Event by clicking on Leave
  • Which then took me back to Teams

Getting the Presenters into the Live Event

The next challenge was how do I get a presenter that I have invited into the Live Event. Quite often the presenter is external to my organization and I wanted to get them to join as a presenter.

Below are the steps for the presenter to get into the Live Event as a presenter.

  • Before the presenter can click on the link, they MUST make sure that they are in the correct Teams tenant.
    • In my example the presenter had to make sure that they were in the FourMoo.com tenant before clicking on the Presenter Link
  • As a presenter they got the invite and then clicked on the link to join the Live Event
  • After clicking on the link, the Presenter then selected Open Microsoft Teams
  • The presenter then clicked on Join now
  • As the presenter I could now see that I had joined and that the event was Pre-Live
  • The presenter then shared their screen or video
  • The producer would also be able to see the Presenter, and what they are currently sharing
  • At this point in time the producer (being me) would then send this to the Queue
    • And then Send Live and click Start
    • On the presenters Teams window, it would now show that the event is live and running and could start presenting.
  • Once the presenter is finished, they would then stop sharing by clicking on the Stop Sharing button
  • The presenter could then continue or if they are no longer quired they could Hang Up
  • NOTE: The producer could then continue with another presenter or could end the Live Event

Event Resources after the Live Event

Once the event is completed there are event resources that I could use, which are explained below.

  • Recording – This is where I could download the Live Stream and possibly upload to YouTube or another video service.
  • Q&A report – This is a report on the Q&A activities
  • Attendee engagement report –
  • Recording for attendees – This will allow the attendees to view the recording of the Live Event.

Users can replay the Live Event

I had enabled that the attendees could view the recording the event (which was the option of “Recording for attendees”)

As shown below the attendee can click on the play button to view the live event

What attendees will see before the Live Event Starts

Below is what the attendees will see before the Live Event starts

Summary

As I have shown below once I created the Live Event, I then showed how I ran the Live Event and got additional presenters into the Live Event.

If there are any questions or suggestions, please leave them in the comments section below.

Once again thanks for reading and I do hope that this will assist with running Live Events.