What guests see in the waiting room
A guest arrives at your room link, enters a first name and email at the door (or is recognised if they are already signed in), and lands in the lobby. The lobby does four simple things well.
It names the host, with a message such as Jordan will be joining shortly, so nobody wonders whether they are in the right place. It shows a countdown to the scheduled start, so early arrivals know how long they have. It offers an add-to-calendar button, which is useful for guests who arrived on the wrong day or want a reminder for the next session. And it plays a light animation in your style, so the page feels alive rather than frozen.
Then it waits. Guests do not refresh, re-click or hunt for a new link. The page keeps checking whether the room is live, and the moment you press Start the room, each guest's page switches to the meeting on its own, joined muted.
Why a branded lobby beats the platform's own waiting room
Most meeting platforms offer a waiting room of their own. It does a security job: the host admits people, one by one or in batches. That is fine for a small private call. For an event with a real audience, it creates a queue at the door at precisely the moment you want to be welcoming people.
The branded waiting room does the waiting instead. The recommended setup is to keep a passcode on your meeting, save that passcode in your room settings so guests never type it, and turn the platform's own waiting room off. With both on, guests wait twice and you spend the opening minutes pressing admit. With the branded lobby alone, everyone arrives together, on your page, with your name in front of them.
What to say in the waiting room, by event
The message is short, but it sets the tone for everything that follows. Name the host, name the moment, and tell guests what to have ready. A few starting points:
- Company all-hands: Priya and the leadership team will be joining shortly. Grab a coffee; questions are welcome in the chat once we start.
- Masterclass: Sam will be joining shortly. Have a notebook ready, because today's session is hands-on.
- Client webinar: Thanks for joining the Northwind product briefing. Our team will be with you shortly.
- Community call: Welcome back. The call starts at the top of the hour, and newcomers get a shout-out first.
- Business birthday or launch: The party starts shortly. Turn your sound on; there may be confetti.
The first impression, for companies and for creators
For a company, the lobby is a quiet signal of care. An employee joining a town hall sees the company logo, the name of the person leading it and a clear start time, which is reassuring in a way a blank meeting window never is. A customer joining an onboarding webinar sees the vendor's brand rather than a generic screen, and knows straight away they are in the right session. Corporate hosts tend to keep the message calm and practical: who is speaking, when it starts, where questions go.
For a coach, a creator or a small business, the lobby is the opening act. It is the first thing a new prospect sees of your live work, and it can carry your personality: a warm line, a playful note about turning the sound on, a reminder of what the session will help them do. Either way, the waiting room does one job above all: it tells every guest, before a word is spoken, whose room this is.
Which tier includes it
Every room has a waiting room. On the free 30-day trial and the Generic Room it appears in the BrandedRooms style, with your host name, the countdown, the add-to-calendar button and the animation.
On the Branded Room plan, the lobby takes on your brand kit: your logo, your colours and your fonts, on your own domain or subdomain if you add one. This is the version to choose when the waiting room is the first impression a client, a customer or a whole company will have of the event.
Custom Deluxe goes further, with a room fully branded to the business, a logo burst and custom music and effects. White-label for agencies is available through our team.
Running the wait well
A lobby is only as good as the host behind it. These habits make the minutes before the start feel intentional rather than awkward.
- Open the room about fifteen minutes early so the first arrivals see a live page, not a closed door.
- Send guests the room link, never the raw meeting link. The raw link skips the lobby, the capture and everything else on the page.
- Start the meeting in your meeting app before you press Start the room. If you press first, guests see a message that the meeting has not started.
- Ask a colleague to sit in the lobby on a second device, so you can see exactly what guests see.
- For long waits, such as a keynote that runs late, update guests in your own channels; the lobby message stays in place until you press Start the room.
Honest limits
The waiting room is a page, so it reaches the guests who come through the page. Anyone who joins with the regular meeting link in their desktop meeting app goes straight to the platform's experience and never sees your lobby. The countdown counts to the time you scheduled, not to the moment you actually begin; the meeting starts when you press Start the room. And the lobby cannot start the meeting for you: as host, you still start it in your meeting app first. None of these is a surprise if you plan for it, and the setup guide on passcode and waiting-room settings covers each one in order.