Applicable packages
checkApplicable to all Symposium packages
This article is for event organizers. If you are an event participant, please see our Resources for Participants section.

Live Sessions are any synchronous activities you’d like to incorporate into your event. This could be welcome keynotes, seminars, panels, Q&A's, groups of oral presenters giving live talks, networking events, small group discussions, presentation video rooms, or any other activity in which your attendees are able to synchronously interface with others.

In your event on Symposium, you can create a schedule for all of your live sessions in one place for a more seamless attendee experience. Registered attendees will be able to click on the Live Sessions tab for a complete schedule of your synchronous activities, where they will be able to tune into a live stream or webinar, take a seat at a virtual table, and join a video conference room for small group discussion. They can even moderate a live session if they have been designated as a moderator.  


Participants will not be able to join a live session outside of the time period you have scheduled for the session. Depending on what type of live session you create, participants will be able to raise their hand, share their screen, chat with other participants, and collaborate via whiteboards. In the case of Tables, participants can switch between each of the open tables to interact with a variety of other participants. 

In this article, we will discuss the first steps in organizing your live sessions itinerary and how to calculate how many credits worth of live video streaming you will need.

For guidance in creating and managing video conference meetings, webinars, and live streams, please see A guide to Meetings, Webinars, and Live Streams.

For guidance on creating and managing Tables, please see A guide to Tables.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Adding a new Time Slot

To begin building your itinerary of Live Sessions within your Symposium event, navigate to the Live Sessions tab under your event management dashboard and click the yellow “Add Time Slot” button at the top of the lefthand pane.

You will be asked to provide a title for the time slot you are creating, as well as the date, start time, and end time, that will apply to all sessions created within this time slot. These times will automatically format into users' local time zones. Be sure to click “Save” when you have finished filling out all of the required fields. 

Choosing the session type

Once you have created your first time slot, you will be prompted to choose between two different general types of live sessions that you would like to organize within this time slot. Video conference meetings, webinars, and live streams are equipped with an array of tools, such as screen sharing, participant hand raising, group chat, and moderator controls, to facilitate larger group interactions surrounding a primary subject. Table sessions are ideal for small group discussions and networking, with each virtual "table" (or video conferencing room) seating up to 8 people. 

For guidance creating and managing video conference meetings, webinars, and live streams, please see A guide to Meetings, Webinars, and Live Streams.


For guidance on creating and managing Tables, please see A guide to Tables.

Editing Time Slots

You may add as many Time Slots as you desire within the event uptime allowed as per your package and there is no limit to the number of Live Sessions that you can create within these Time Slots, although there is a limit on the number of credits per event associated with your package (add-ons available if more needed). All Time Slots will appear within the left pane of your Live Sessions page under your event management dashboard, and the Live Sessions associated with each time slot will appear in the right pane. 

Once a scheduled time for a Time Slot has begun, you will no longer be able to make edits to the title, description, and start and end time of that Time Slot. However, you may modify the details of a past live session at any point throughout the uptime of your event, so you can go back and add to the description or replace the live session link with a link to the recorded session for asynchronous viewing after the session has taken place. Live Sessions can also be deleted if no participants have joined yet, thus allowing that particular session to not count towards your credits.


Creating Presentation Video Rooms

One of the many ways you can hold synchronous interactions between attendees, judges, and presenters on Symposium is through Presentation Video Rooms. These video rooms allow presenters to hold their own personal video conferences to present their work to attendees and judges as well as hold live Q&A Sessions. 

At the bottom of the Live Sessions description, you will see the option to create a video conferencing link for each submitted presentation. By selecting the checkbox, you will then be able to customize when you would like to hold your event's Presentation Video Rooms, as well as how many participants you expect in each room. Once you have finished setting up your Presentation Video Rooms, you will be able to select "Save" to confirm these changes. 

Attendees will not be able to see the video conferencing link until the specified time of the Presentation Video Rooms. Once the Presentation Video Rooms have opened, attendees, presenters, and judges will be able to visit a specific presentation and select the link in the top right corner that will then bring them into the Presentation Video Room. 

NOTE: Similar to Tables, attendees and presenters will need to successfully register for your event in order to join the Presentation Video Rooms, even if you have made Live Sessions public. To prevent any possible confusion, please make sure your attendees and presenters are aware of this before the scheduled day of the Presentation Video Rooms. 

Calculating credits

On the upper right hand side of your event management Live Sessions tab, you will see a running counter of credits available as part of your event with your purchased Symposium package and credits accounted for by your scheduled live sessions. As you set up each session, depending on the parameters you apply, a certain number of credits will be used. The number of participants and the length of each live session (as set by the Time Slot under which the live session is organized) are used to calculate the number of credits accounted for.

NOTE: Credits are accounted for by total scheduled live video streaming time, not actually realized total time spent live streaming. If a scheduled live session has begun and no participant has joined, you may delete the live session, and it will no longer count against your used credits.


If you would like to see how many Meetings, Webinars, Live Streams, and Tables you can hold during your event, please refer to the Live Sessions Calculator which can be accessed in the right-hand corner of the Live Sessions page. 

Once you have opened the Live Sessions Calculator, you will be able to input the number of sessions you would like to hold, the duration of sessions in minutes, and the maximum limit of participants per session to see the amount of credits it would use.


If you find that your event will need more credits than your purchased plan provides, please reach out to [email protected] to purchase add-ons. Add-ons may be purchased for $29 per additional 25,000 credits, not including our standard transaction/set-up fee. Please also note that using a third-party video conferencing tool does not use any credits so there is no limit to the number of sessions you may hold on Zoom, Webex, Microsoft Teams, or another tool.