It depends on what content format (RTMP/External/Video on Demand) you're using! We've got articles to walk you through How to Set Up a Livestream Event Instance and How to Set Up a Video On Demand Event Instance, so check that out after you decide what format you're using.

Yes! You can set up geofencing for Video on Demand and RTMP Livestreams.

If you want to sell tickets to a recorded video, you should probably use Video on Demand.

But! If you want to sell access to something that doesn't have a specific date/time (e.g. an audiobook), then we recommend the following:

1. Set up an External Livestream Event Instance
2. Set the Instance Date to 2099
3. Turn the countdown timer off
4. Use the Pre-stream Message to point below (i.e. "Click the link below to download your audiobook")
5. Put the link in the Pre-stream Content.

Nope - Shoot for the moon and sell as many tickets as you can!

Your ability to use these features depends on your contract. If you want to be able to use Video On Demand or RTMP, and cannot currently, reach out to us on a case via the Community and let us know - we can chat about modifying your contract.

Your ability to set $0 price levels depends on your contract. Running Virtual Events incurs hard costs for PatronManager, so the way you pay for the service (and thus, your contract) dictates your ability to set $0 price levels.

If you want to be able to set $0 price levels and cannot currently, reach out to us on a case via the Community and let us know - we can chat about modifying your contract.

Good question -- this is what you'll use for regular, in-person Event Instances.

Virtual Event Instances cannot be created using a mass upload.

When a Virtual Event Instance is created normally through the system, a corresponding "event" on the streaming service is also created. This is required to validate your patrons' tickets and to upload or stream your content. Uploading Event Instances does not trigger this step, and therefore those Instances will not be usable.

You may also receive the error message "Stream does not exist (user.general.does_not_exist)" if you create a Virtual Event Instance using a mass upload tool.

For more on how to create Virtual Event Instances, see How to Set Up a Livestream Event Instance and How to Set Up a Video On Demand Event Instance.

You can build virtual events into a subscription package just like any other kind of event!

Each virtual event ticket gets its own unique URL, just as each seat at a live performance gets its own ticket. And, just as an in-person subscriber would receive a separate ticket to each show, a virtual events subscriber will receive a separate link for each stream.

Our recommended best practice is to set up Automated Pre-Show Emails so all of your ticket buyers - and especially your subscribers - receive an additional email an hour before a livestream starts with their unique ticket link in it. This will help your subscribers easily find their link at showtime; no one wants to dig through email frantically for the link they need.

You may wish to consider a model where one ticket is good for one viewing device. If two patrons live together, they'll likely watch your virtual event on the same screen (or virtual "seat").

Patrons can of course buy multiple tickets in the same Order, but keep in mind that they'll receive an email with all their access links, and it could be tricky to ensure that the right person clicks on the right link when they forward that email to their other viewers.

Great question. The answer depends on the type of content:

• For VOD content: When you set up your Event Instance, you should:
  1. Set global availability to the date you plan to load in the video
  2. Make sure to set the Allocation view limit to start from "first-viewed date" (rather than  from "purchase date")
  3. Be sure to upload the video file at least a day before the availability window opens
• For Livestreamed content: You will need to pick your format between the two modes, but once you do, you'll be able to start selling tickets:
  • For RTMP mode: you'll stream straight to us when it comes time to go live
  • For External mode: insert a placeholder link (e.g. to your YouTube channel), and be sure to update it before the Event Instance Date

The process here is the same as for any other kind of Event. We recommend using Discount Codes tied to Benefit Levels if you use Portal, or Passcodes (with or without Portal) to give your members discounted access while still selling full-priced tickets to non-members.

This is a wonderful idea - but not one we've implemented yet. If this is something your organization needs to do, please submit a Product Idea and let us know how you'd use such a feature. We'd love to have your input!

In the meantime, you could set up the different options as separate Event Instances; patrons can purchase them together and will receive a link for each one in their confirmation email.

You can send automatic post-show emails for livestreamed events! And because PatronManager automatically tracks attendance for virtual events, you can use the option to only send post-show emails to attendees if you wish.

Automatic post-show emails are not currently compatible with Video on Demand Event Instances. If you choose to send outreach to these patrons manually, the date the patron first viewed the content is available for reporting in the "Entry Date" field on the Ticket Order Item.

Confirmation emails include conditional text if the Order contains one or more virtual events. The default text reads as follows:

"Your order contains tickets to one or more virtual events. To view your virtual event(s), click the button(s) below a few minutes before the listed time."

Below the text, patrons will see the button(s) to click to use their virtual tickets:

You've got a few options, depending on what you need:

• If you're just sending the ticket links of a single order (i.e. to a single patron), you can follow these instructions.
• If you need to send a spreadsheet of tickets to a group sale buyer (e.g. a teacher), follow the instructions on this FAQ.
• If you need to resend the ticket links to everyone who purchased a ticket to the virtual Event Instance and you sold less than ~2,000 tickets to it, you can use automated communications; the process is similar to sending a cancellation email.
• If you need to resend the ticket links to everyone who purchased a ticket to the virtual Event Instance and you sold more than ~2,000 tickets to it, you can send it via Emma/MailChimp; follow these instructions.

PatronManager Virtual Events have three layers of gating:

1. Ticket purchase gating: your patron must purchase a ticket to receive their access link
2. Access link gating: they must click a link to access the content, and we make sure their ticket is real and currently valid
3. Concurrency protection: RTMP and VOD Event Instances prevent sharing a ticket across multiple devices

Concurrency protection means each ticket purchased allows one device to access your content at a time.

The PatronManager platform checks for simultaneous viewers using the same virtual ticket every 30 seconds. The most recent viewer who clicked the ticket link will keep access, and all other viewers using that same ticket link will get booted from the stream.

Don't worry - this doesn't have any negative consequences for your rule-following ticket buyers:

• If a patron's connection is interrupted, they can still go back and click their ticket again to rejoin the stream.
• If a patron renting content via Video On Demand for 48 hours wants to watch it again within that 48 hour period, they can do so with their same ticket.

They'll click the "Support" link on the player page, which will direct them to you. We recommend including a phone number or email there of someone like a House Manager at an in-person performance.

The majority of issues that would lead a patron to clicking said "Support" link are:

• Their internet is insufficient for a quality streaming experience
• Wanting to donate to your organization
• Questions about the content of the show

And these are all questions your House Manager should be prepared to answer.

If you're having problems steaming your content, make sure you're familiar with this article about your emergency backup plan (you should have set this up when enabling the feature).

Updating Enhanced Domains changes all of your domains, including those used for Virtual Events, and can cause interruptions for you and your patrons. For this reason, we recommend updating Enhanced domains during a low volume time for your Virtual Events (i.e. not the day of a Livestream or the release date of a VOD).

If you've updated Enhanced Domains and use Virtual Events, make sure to go click the Update Domain button in the Virtual Event Settings section of PatronTicket Settings to update your domain.

It sure does! You can turn on chat functionality for your patrons in the Control Panel by clicking the "Setup Chat and Reactions" button in the Chat box.

From the Chat Settings, you can:

1. Allow Chat: Check this box if you'd like to allow chat functionality
2. Allow Reactions: Check this box if you'd like to allow patrons to interact with emoji reactions. These are only visible in real time
3. You are a moderator. Enter your name.: Enter the name you'd like to be known as in the chat
4. Enable Chat / Save Settings: Click to save the settings and enable chat

You can! For example, if you want patrons to be able to chat during intermission, but not during the actual performance, you can opt to allow or not allow chat during the stream as you so choose.

Patrons will have the option to hide chat from their view if they'd rather not participate, or if they have a smaller screen.

You can participate and moderate the chat from the Control Panel for the event. Specifically, you'll have the option to:

1. Ban This User: This option mutes the user in chat and they will not be able to send further messages
   • This will move the user to the "Banned Users" tab in chat, where you can unmute them if desired
2. Ban This User From Event: This option removes the user from the livestream and invalidates their ticket so they cannot return
   • This cannot be undone
3. Delete This Message: This deletes the message from the chat for everyone

There are also some built-in moderation tools for you:

• A profanity filter to block messages that contain words from Google's banned words list
• Rate-limiting to prevent participants from spamming the chat with a limitation of 7 messages per minute
• A message character limit of 250 characters

You can pin a message by either check the pinned box before sending your message

Or by opting to pin the message in the chat.

You can download the chat for up to 90 days by clicking the gear icon and opting to "Download Chat History."

It depends what you're trying to do and what's important to you (such as: do you need interactivity with your audience? What about access control?). We've pulled together some questions and deciding factors for you over in this article.

If you're using the PatronManager player to host your livestream, you'll use broadcasting software to send your content to the right place. There are many different kinds of broadcasting software: you'll find our top recommendations, and the pros and cons of each, in the second half of this article.

Just like any other performance! The Automated Communications feature is fully compatible with tickets sold to virtual livestreamed events, and pre-show reminder emails are highly recommended!

You can also add a merge field to include a button with the patron's link to view the livestream in their pre-show reminder email:

Great question! You'd need to set up two separate Event Instances: one with the "Standard" content format for the in-person show, and a separate Event Instance for the livestream. Your Standard Event Instance might have reserved seating or attendance caps, while the livestream may have different pricing, details, and capacity.

The details depend on the content format you choose. Check out this article for more.

We have some best practices for you; from a dress rehearsal to a stage manager, we've got you covered in this article.

If you've got multiple people participating and/or performing from multiple platforms, we highly recommend using StreamYard.

Use the "Livestream (External)" Content Format and set all your prices/fees to $0.

Let's say you're doing a set of art classes using Zoom and the "Livestream (External)" option. These classes will happen weekly on Wednesdays at 6pm for 8 weeks. How should you set this up?

It depends! Here are a few things to consider.

1. Do you want to be able to keep selling tickets after the first session and/or sell classes individually?
   • If so, you should set up the classes as separate Event Instances, and consider building them into subscription packages (all 8 classes, 7 classes, etc).
2. Do you want to automatically track attendance in PatronManager for each class separately?
   • If so, you'll need to set up a separate Event Instance for each class.
3. Were the answers to questions 1 and 2 "no"? Will the external (i.e. Zoom) link be the same for every class?
   • You could set up a single Event Instance with the Instance Date as the first class start time and the Instance End Date as the last class end time.
   • Patrons will be able to use their ticket links to click through the player page to the external stream link as many times as they need to during that range.

Your patrons will receive the link they need to access the your livestream in their Order Confirmation email immediately after they purchase a ticket. 

However, our recommended best practice is also send them an email just before the show with the same link - it's no fun to sift through your inbox for a link to a show you paid for.

You've got two options here, depending on your audience size:

Direct them back to their email and have them click their virtual ticket / access link again, just as they did to join the stream originally.

Access Control in PatronManager protects against simultaneous concurrent viewers, and does not count the total number of clicks.

Head over to the "Livestream (RTMP)" Event Instance and click the "Control Panel" button:

You can do one or both of the following:

1. If you want folks who bought tickets to the livestream to have automatic access to the recorded version afterward, you can convert the completed livestream to VOD
2. If you want to sell more tickets to the recorded version after the livestream is over, we recommend uploading the recording of your livestream to a new "Video on Demand" Event Instance and selling access to it that way

You cannot embed a stream from another platform in the PM frame.

If you'd like to use the PatronManager player page, use "Livestream (RTMP)". If you'd like to host the stream on another platform (like YouTube), use "Livestream (External)".

To clarify, when you use our streaming platform (i.e. RTMP), you aren't capturing video, streaming it to YouTube, then sending it to our platform. Rather, you're capturing video and sending it straight to our platform.

Our Client Community has a whole group of organizations like yours who are turning to streamed content - we recommend asking them what they've tried and liked so far!

If you haven't joined the Virtual Events Community Group yet, it's the last step in enabling the feature for your organization.

You can't download stats from the Control Panel yet, but that's a great idea. Please submit a Product Idea in the Community so our Product Development Team knows that this is something you want - every vote counts!

You can download chat from the Control Panel up to 90 days after the stream.

For RTMP livestreams, you can check the Virtual Events Dashboard in PatronTicket Settings to see how long your patrons spent viewing your event.

This Virtual Events Dashboard only shows the amount of minutes patrons spent viewing events within a date range that you set.

This dashboard does not count total viewers or unique viewers, which is available from the Control Panel on an individual virtual Event Instance.

Don't forget the emergency pull-switch you set up when configuring virtual events! You can use it to quickly send all ticket holders a backup link to view the stream -- either the same link they'd have landed on anyway for a "Livestream (External)" Event Instance, or a backup link you created for a "Livestream (RTMP)" Event Instance. Here are those setup steps again.

Here are some error messages we've seen, and how to fix them.

1. Unable to register your Event Instance with the livestream service: {"error":"Unable to create stream - Make sure all settings have been set"}
   • Are you creating a "Livestream (External)" Event Instance? Check to make sure your Stream URL is correct, that it matches the platform you selected in the dropdown, and that there are no spaces or line breaks in the URL.
2. Unable to register your Event Instance with the livestream service: Attempt to de-reference a null object
   • Try the same troubleshooting steps as for #1.

• rtmps://global-live.mux.com/app
  • This is the default URL, and will work with most providers
• rtmps://global-live.mux.com:443/app
  • Some providers like Wirecast may require this more specific URL
• rtmp://global-live.mux.com:5222/app
  • This URL is less secure, but works with many providers that can't use the fully secure URLs listed above (for example, Livestream.com)

Here are some other terms we've seen used:

• Stream Key 
  • Sometimes labeled as "Stream Name"
• Stream URL
  • Sometimes labeled "Server URL" or "FMS URL"

Check your "Livestream (External)" Event Instance, specifically the URL you've provided. Make sure it's a valid URL, and make sure it contains the "https://" in the address.

In the image below, the URL is missing that prefix, and would throw this error until corrected:

If you've recently enabled Enhanced Domains, this may happen if your domain for Virtual Events hasn't been updated yet.

Go click the Update Domain button in the Virtual Event Settings section of PatronTicket Settings to update your domain.

Our best practice recommendation is to go with a Livestream Event Instance instead. It's the best way to make it "seem" like it's a live performance, or emulate something like a TV special. Further recommendations:

1. Use the "RTMP" option
2. Use OBS Studio (linking to a platform like Vimeo to stream will be more obvious to your patrons)

There's nothing inherent in the PatronManager platform that makes it possible to download VOD content. However, a determined bad actor could hack a workaround to record it, just like they could on NetFlix or other streaming platforms.

If this is a high concern, we recommend you consider watermarking your videos. Please also submit a Product Idea.

All video sizes we've tested have worked well so far (note that the max resolution is 1080p).

It does take a bit to upload your video, though, and the larger the file, the longer it takes. We recommend allowing a full day to complete the upload, to avoid last-minute stress. If you have a very large file or experience issues uploading directly from your computer, you can upload the file to your website or a hosting service like Dropbox, and have the system fetch the file from that URL instead.

For full instructions, see our "How to Set Up a Video On Demand Event Instance" article.

You can add closed caption subtitle tracks to your VOD from the Control Panel. Click here for full instructions.

For VOD events, you can check the Virtual Events Dashboard in PatronTicket Settings to see how long your patrons spent viewing your video.

This Virtual Events Dashboard only shows the amount of minutes patrons spent viewing events within a date range that you set, and will not necessarily show the all-time total minutes viewed for your video.

This dashboard does not count total viewers or unique viewers, which is available from the Control Panel on an individual virtual Event Instance.

Reset the VOD ticket's validity depending on how the tickets are set up:

• "First-Viewed Date" validity: go to the patron's Ticket Order in PMBO, open the "Print" tab, and clear the "Attendance" for that ticket
• "Purchased Date" validity: exchange the ticket for a new one, and send the patron the automatic exchange confirmation email (this will contain their new ticket link)

In addition, if you've recently enabled Enhanced Domains, this may happen if your domain for Virtual Events hasn't been updated yet.

Go click the Update Domain button in the Virtual Event Settings section of PatronTicket Settings to update your domain.

If you've recently enabled Enhanced Domains, this may happen if your domain for Virtual Events hasn't been updated yet.

Go click the Update Domain button in the Virtual Event Settings section of PatronTicket Settings to update your domain.

Here are a few things to try:

• Make sure that you're using a video file (not something like a .jpg or a .pdf)
• Try using a different browser (e.g. Firefox vs Chrome)
• Check your internet speed, including the upload speed, using something like speedtest -- if your connection is slow or unstable, uploads can take a long time

If you see an error like the one shown below, double-check your file for syntax errors.

Typical SRT syntax looks like this:

Syntax errors vary; here are some examples:

• Two consecutive spaces where one space is expected (e.g. in the timestamp)
  • 00:00:00,000  --> 00:00:05,000 (there are two spaces before the arrow, but there should only be one)
• Missing spaces in the timestamp
  • 00:00:00,000-->00:00:05,000 (there are no spaces before/after the arrow)
• Incorrect characters (e.g. a colon or period in the place of a comma on a timestamp line)
  • 00:00:00,000-->00:00:05:000 (note the misplaced colon near the end)
• Missing subtitle numbers, or subtitle numbers out of order
  • Each timestamp/subtitle combo is preceded by a number (1, 2, 3, etc). Placing a timestamp/subtitle combo without its preceding number, or placing a number out of sequence, can result in an error
• An extra carriage return between the timestamp and the subtitle