What the control panel does
Your meeting platform's app still runs the meeting itself: cameras, microphones, screen share, breakout rooms and the recording. The control panel runs the room around it. It sits in a separate browser tab, visible only to you and whoever you share your host login with, and it is where every room-level decision is made.
- Open and close the room. Opening lets guests through the door and into the waiting room; closing ends the room page for the event.
- Start the room. One button that switches every waiting guest's page to the live meeting at once, joined muted, after you have started the meeting in your meeting app.
- Fire effects. Confetti, sparkles, rockets, applause and sounds, from a button or keys 1–5, on every in-room viewer's screen at the same moment.
- See who is in. A live list of guests who came through the door, by first name and email.
- Watch capacity. A warning as the room nears the participant limit you set from your meeting licence.
- See join problems. If an embedded join fails on a guest's device, it is reported here, so you know who might need help.
Which plan includes which controls
Every plan gets the panel; the controls inside it grow with the plan.
- Free 30-day trial: open and close the room, Start the room and join problems, alongside the room's guest capture.
- Generic Room: everything above, plus the standard effects on keys 1–5, the live attendee list, capacity warnings and a CSV export of your guests.
- Branded Room: the same controls in a room carrying your own brand, with guests also sent to your CRM or email tool with tags.
- Custom Deluxe: the room's own Go Live command center, fully branded to the business, with a logo burst, custom music and effects, and five custom party features ready to fire, each with the effect, image and sound you chose.
- Through our team: multiple rooms under one account, single sign-on for hosts and dedicated support, scoped and quoted.
A run of show, from the panel's side
Most hosts use the panel in the same rhythm every time. Writing it down once makes every event calmer.
- Well before the event: open the panel, check the meeting details and capacity in the room settings, and run a test join on a second device.
- About fifteen minutes before: open the room, so early guests reach the waiting room rather than a closed door.
- Five minutes before: start the meeting in your meeting app as host and bring in your speakers.
- At the start time: press Start the room, then watch the room page on your second device until guests appear in the meeting.
- First few minutes: glance at join problems and the attendee list, and help anyone who is stuck.
- Big moments: fire the effects you planned in your run of show.
- At the close: thank guests, end the meeting in your app, and close the room.
Who should hold the panel
On a small call, the host does everything: speaks, presents and presses the buttons. That works well when the agenda is simple and the audience is friendly.
On a larger event, give the panel to a producer, even if that is simply a colleague who knows the plan. The host can then speak without looking away, while the producer starts the room on the agreed cue, watches the attendee list, keeps an eye on capacity, fires effects on the beats in the run of show and handles join problems quietly. Agree a few cues in advance, such as we are live or confetti on the reveal, so neither person has to improvise.
Keep the panel on a laptop that is not sharing its screen. It is easy to share the wrong window in the middle of a presentation, and the panel, with its guest list, is not something the audience should see.
Examples by use case
The panel is the same; how hosts lean on it changes with the event.
- Company town hall: the producer holds the panel, starts the room on the minute, watches capacity against the whole headcount and fires applause once at the close.
- Sales kickoff: the panel fires applause as each team is introduced and rockets when the year's theme is revealed.
- Masterclass: the host holds the panel alone, starts the room, glances at the attendee list to welcome a few names and fires sparkles when a participant shares a win.
- Customer onboarding webinar: join problems matter most, because new customers may be on unfamiliar devices, so someone watches them closely in the opening minutes.
- Business birthday: a friend or team member holds the panel so the founder can simply enjoy the celebration, with confetti queued for the toast.
Honest limits
The control panel runs the room, not the meeting. Muting guests, admitting people, spotlighting a speaker, running breakout rooms and recording all happen in your meeting platform's own app, exactly as they do today. Press Start the room only after you have started the meeting in that app; otherwise guests see a message that the meeting has not started.
The panel sees guests who came through your room page. People who joined with the regular meeting link in their desktop app are in the meeting but not on the attendee list, they do not see effects, and their seats still count toward your participant limit. And the panel is a host tool: anyone you share your host login with can open the room, start it and fire effects, so share it with care.