The waiting room is where people sit before the session starts. It counts down, gets their sound working, and takes them into the video by itself at the start time. Set it up under Webinars → your webinar → Set up → Waiting room, where the preview shows it as you edit.
You don’t have to turn it on. Anyone who opens their join link before the start time lands here. To see the attendee’s side in full, read The waiting room.
Write a note
A note before you start is an optional message from you, up to 280 characters. Keep it to a line or two and give people something to do, such as grabbing a notebook or closing other tabs.
Where it shows depends on the screen:
- On a computer: a Before we start card beside the countdown, for the whole wait. Line breaks are kept.
- On a phone: in place of the “The video starts here in a moment.” line, during the last 30 seconds only.
If you leave it empty, the card doesn’t appear on a computer and phones show the standard line.
Show how many people are waiting
Under Who’s waiting, the Show how many people are waiting switch controls the count in the lobby’s header, such as “32 people are waiting with you”. It’s on by default.
This is the same switch as Attendee counter on the Chat & questions step, so changing it here changes the room too.
Edit what they’ll learn
The What you’ll learn card reuses the points from your registration page, so the two always match. You can’t edit them here: choose Edit on the registration page. With no points, the card is hidden in the lobby.
What else appears
These come from other steps. You don’t set them here.
| In the lobby | Where it comes from |
|---|---|
| Small line above the title on a computer, such as “Free live training” | Eyebrow on the registration page. If it’s empty, attendees see “Free live training”. |
| Title, presenter name, title and photo | Details |
| Length in minutes | Your video’s duration |
| Start time and time zone | The session, shown in the attendee’s own time zone |
| Your logo, brand name and colour | Branding |
Let people switch to a later session
If a later session is available, the lobby offers “Need a bit longer? Switch to 4:30 PM”, using the next available time. One click moves them, and their personal link stays the same. There’s nothing to configure.
The link doesn’t appear when:
- There’s no later session on the schedule.
- The webinar is part of a challenge, where each day has a fixed session.
- The webinar isn’t published.
- The person has already attended a session.
Rescheduling is limited to 10 tries a minute from one network, which only matters if many people on the same connection move at once.
Save your changes
Choose Save changes at the bottom of the step. The waiting room uses the same room settings as Chat & questions, and a save applies to every session straight away. The change reaches someone already waiting when they reload.
Next, build the room timeline.