Many of my most recent new clients already have a Zoom Events license and are part-way through the development of their event, but need someone they can come to for guidance and troubleshooting. I call this service “Zoom Event Navigation” (ZEN for short) where I tell you where to look for things you can’t find elsewhere, and research anything I don’t know the answer to until I find the answer!
A brand new client came to me the day after our initial meeting saying the Event Sponsors were seeing the Start Practice button for the main session in their Lobby.
Important to note in this case that the client is having a hybrid event, and the sponsors who will be speaking with all be onsite, and consequently have no need to be starting the main session.
Is there a way to leaving the indication of their sponsorship intact, while removing this tempting Start Practice button from the Representatives’ session listings?
I was stumped on this, partly because my production event experience with Zoom Events Expos is pretty limited, since most of my clients don’t want or need an Expo. But also because I first checked the Speaker listing for the session in question and saw that, while all of the speakers were present in the list, none of them had the Alt-Host box checked, nor were they entered into the Alt-Host text box below the speaker listing.
Again because my limited experience with production Expos, I wasn’t quite sure where to look. My instinct told me there might be something associated with each the Representative in the listing, a switch that says “Alt Host for all or specific sessions,” but there was nothing.
While going through Sponsor and Representative settings, I noticed something I hadn’t really paid much attention to before. I knew it was there, but made a few incorrect assumptions about it: the Associated Sessions entry.
This was the session flashing the “Start Practice” button. A flash of light hit a brain cell of mine (sometimes it only takes one), and the answer was clear: This had to be removed from all Exhibitors!
Why, You Ask?
I think the assumption is that if an Exhibitor is going to sponsor a session, it isn’t a general session presented by the event producers. This is intended as a way to give all attending Representatives a way to get into the session — and also to start the session — since it is intended to be their session. Give them the keys to the kingdom, including starting the session and being host and co-hosts.
I looked at the session listings and didn’t see any indication that the session in question had any special indication of the exhibitor sponsorships. And this session really was a long-form webinar with several short-form presentations in it, from a variety of exhibitors. It was not a single session “owned” by a single exhibitor.
So taking away the Associated sessions entries above didn’t have any negative impact.