Conduct hybrid events with Zoho Backstage

Conduct hybrid events with Zoho Backstage

Hello everyone,

The current approach for hosting events is to go hybrid, combining the physical and virtual, since online events are here to stay and physical events will never go out of style. Hosting a hybrid event is a good option when you want to seamlessly connect your online and offline audiences.



To help with this, we're introducing hybrid events in Zoho Backstage, which will have the features needed to conduct your event at the location while also providing options for online attendees to participate.

Create your hybrid event


Provide a shared experience for attendees from wherever they are by setting the event type as Hybrid when you create it. Pick a location for where your event will happen physically and choose a webcasting service through which you'll stream to your online attendees. You can then continue setting up your event as you normally would. Also, add hosts to your tracks or halls so that sessions can be started by them on the event day. When you are done with creating your event, publish it to take your microsite live.

Event check-in


On event day, checking in attendees can be done at the event location or online. At the event location, you can check in attendees through Zoho Backstage's web app or the mobile app for event organizers (Android or iOS). For attendees who are online, they can check in to the event by themselves from the Home page in the microsite or from their attendee app (Android or iOS).

Stream your event to attendees everywhere


Speakers can deliver their sessions from the event location. For physical attendees, these sessions can be projected onto a screen. Hosts can use the Theatre mode option in the session window to hide other controls for physical attendees and put the focus on the speaker's camera feed. When necessary, materials from the host or speaker's local system can also be presented using the Share screen option.

For remote audiences, the entire session can be streamed online.

Speakers can also deliver sessions remotely instead of at the event location, which can then be viewed by attendees from wherever they are.

Session participation for onsite and online audiences


If attendees at the event location want to interact with the speaker during the session, they can use an audio device such as a microphone, which is connected to the session host's system so that online audiences can also listen to what is being said at the event's location. Online audiences can use the Request to speak option in their session window to share their thoughts with the speaker. Once the request is approved both the onsite and online audiences can see and hear the person. A host or a co-host can approve these requests to speak from Backstage by accessing the Attendees tab in the session window.

All tasks relating to the session can be handled by the host or co-host from this session window, including managing polls from the Polls tab and answering and projecting questions from the Questions tab.

Present sessions with flexibility


Speakers who are talking from a remote location can also use options to customize their camera feed with tools like OBS software. Such tools provide them with more scope to better their session delivery. Features like this will help engage audiences further by showing related content such as a PPT or a video inside the speaker's camera feed itself, making the session experience feel more authentic and less distracting.

Soon, we'll also provide options for you to set up exclusive or open ticket types. You'll be able to create open tickets that will enable attendees to choose between attending the event at the location or remotely. On the other hand, you could create tickets that will restrict attendees to joining the event only at the location or only through the event microsite online.

Combine in-person and virtual experiences with hybrid events in Zoho Backstage. Let us know what you think in the comments below. You can also write to us at support@zohobackstage.com for any product-related questions.

Happy organizing!

    • Sticky Posts

    • Important notice: Changes in sender domains

      Hello Backstage users, This is a heads-up about a major change with sender domains in Zoho Backstage. In response to Google's new guidelines for email senders, Backstage won't be able to send emails with the sender domain "gmail.com" or "googlemail.com".

    • Announcing Backstage OnAir, our in-house virtual events solution

      These past months have seen a huge rise in the number of virtual events with some of the biggest events of the year going online. Though there's little possibility for virtual events to completely replace in-person ones, COVID-19 has shown how flexible

    • Introducing the mobile app for event organizers

      It doesn't matter if you're planning your first trade show or an annual executive retreat—organizing an event requires your undivided attention. This is especially true on event day, when things can quickly get out of hand. So how can you stay on top of everything happening at your event? Introducing the Zoho Backstage for Event Organizers mobile app, for Android and iOS—designed to improve and simplify your event management. Getting things started on time, checking in attendees on event day, following

    • Announcing Zoho Backstage: Your complete event management software

      With just a few months till the event, you're still racking your brain. Did you advertise to the right audience? Is your event website design appealing? How will you keep attendees engaged and interested during sessions? It doesn't matter if you're organizing

      • Recent Topics

      • stock

        bom/bse : stock details or price =STOCK(C14;"price") not showing issue is #N/A! kindly resolve this problem

      • Project Approval Process Workflow

        Issue: When a new Project is created, there is lack of process/workflow that provides their manager a process to approve or review. Suggestion/Idea: Similar to “Workflow”, we need “Workflow” ability at Project level, where based on the criteria of the

      • Marketing Tip #5: Improve store speed with optimized images

        Slow-loading websites can turn visitors away. One of the biggest culprits? Large, uncompressed images. By optimizing your images, your store loads faster and creates a smoother shopping experience leading to higher sales. It also indirectly improves SEO.

      • Why can I not choose Unearned Revenue as an account on items?

        Hello, I do not understand why we don't have the ability to code an item to unearned revenue. It is not an uncommon situation to have in business. I understand that there is the Retainer invoice as an option, however that doesn't really work for us. Our

      • Form Submission Emails

        Is there a current delay with submission emails being sent? We've had 10-20 forms completed today but only a handful of emails.

      • Rules not working properly

        I created a rule to display certain fields on certain states. But it seems to be not working. It hides the fields even when I selected California, (which is a state that should show the fields when selected)

      • Notebook font size issue

        If I copy something from somewhere and paste it in my notebook, the font size becomes smaller.

      • Sign in process is beyond stupid. I'd rather plug my phone into USB and copy files than sign in to this POS.

        792 clicks and fields to fill in just to get into a 3rd rate app is too stupid for me.

      • Ampersand in URL parameter // EncodeURL does not work

        Hi Zoho, I have a url link with a parameter. The parameter is including ampersand in some cases (Can be "H&M" or "P&I") When trying to use %26 instead of "&"  (the result I get using EncodeURL()) I get H%26M instead of H&M in the parameter field. How can I solve this? Thanks! Ravid

      • how can we create in zoho crm a new contact when the looup does not find a similar existing one

        In forms/integrations/zoho crm / ne w record tab, contact name is to be mapped with my form contact name. When I go in biew edit/lookup configuration, I don t get the options (help dedicated page simply repeat the same info you get in the app) and does

      • Directory Websites

        Directories are a good website category to gain search engine traffic. Directories for a professional service category as an example can help their members in search results over their individual website. It would be nice to have a directory template

      • Manage Task on Mobile

        How do we manage our task on mobile devices? It seems that there should be a standalone mobile app to handle the new task features. The new features released in regards to Task management are great by the way! Now we need to bring that all together in

      • Set Default Payment Method & Default account

        Hi, I would like to know how to set the default payment method and default bank account when recording payments in zoho books. At present we have to change these fields everytime we record a payment, which leads to potential error and as we have a very

      • Customer Portal on Zoho Desk

        Hi, I'd like to know more about the items below I found when setting up the Customer Portal on Zoho Desk. Could someone help me explaining these in details? Especially the 2nd and 3rd point. Thanking you in advance! Permissions Customers can sign up for Customer Portal Customers can view tickets of their organization (contacts) Customers must register to access Customer Portal Display Community in Customer Self Service portal

      • Computer Showing Offline in Unattended Access

        I have a computer that was connected to the internet but showing offline in Assist. I tried uninstalling the program and deleting it from Zoho Assist the reinstalling and it still does not show up. I have been a user for several months and am not pleased with the lack of connectivity with Assist. If this continues I will have to find another product. The computer I reinstalled it on is not even showing up in Assist now. The name is NYRVLI-PC. Thanks

      • Closing Accounting Periods - Invoice/Posting dates

        Hi, I have seen in another thread but I'm unsure on how the 'transaction locking' works with regards to new and old transactions. When producing monthly accounts if I close December 24 accounts on 8th Jan 25 will transaction locking prevent me from posting

      • Zoho CRM Portal Error

        Hi, We’re experiencing an issue with the Zoho CRM Portal. When we try to access it, we receive an HTTPS connection error: net::ERR_CERT_COMMON_NAME_INVALID. If we proceed past that, we then get a 400 Bad Request error. Could you please help us resolve

      • Can we do Image swatches for color variants?

        We want to do something like the attached screenshot on our new zoho store. We need image swatches instead of normal text selection. We want to user to select an image as color option. Is this doable? I don't see any option on zoho backend. Please h

      • Integrating Zoho CRM EmbeddedApp SDK with Next.js — Initialization and Data Fetching Issues

        You can get an idea from my code I have given in end: First, I worked on a React project and tried the same thing — it worked. My goal was to import the Zoho script and then load contacts using the Zoho Widget SDK, which was successful in React. Now,

      • Script Editor not an option

        I am trying to apply a script to a sheet and Script Editor is not an option. I don't want to go outside Sheets to do this (like Creator) if it can be done inside Sheets.

      • monetizing the courses

        Can I add a price for course enrollment ?

      • Can we add zoho books features like invoices estemates etc on our zohocommerce website. When our customer login with their account they can able to see all books features in one place on zohocommerce?

        Can we add zoho books features like invoices estemates etc on our zohocommerce website. When our customer login with their account they can able to see all books features in one place on zohocommerce?

      • Copy paste from word document deletes random spaces

        Hello Dear Zoho Team, When copying from a word document into Notebook, often I face a problem of the program deleting random spaces between words, the document become terribly faulty, eventhough it is perfect in its original source document (and without

      • Create custom rollup summary fields in Zoho CRM

        Hello everyone, In Zoho CRM, rollup summary fields have been essential tools for summarizing data across related records and enabling users to gain quick insights without having to jump across modules. Previously, only predefined summary functions were

      • Download a file from within a zoho creator widget

        I have a widget running in Zoho Creator , it displays uploaded documents in a table file, and I have added a download link in the view. ( The widget is created with html, css and javascript). I do not succeed in getting the download working. Do I have

      • Taxes for EU B2B Transactions

        Currently, ZC doesn't seem to have a procedure for validating VAT numbers of businesses purchasing in another EU state, and removing local VAT is valid. This is essential for all inter EU B2B trade.

      • Unable to Receive Emails on Zoho Mail After Office 365 Coexistence Setup – Error: 553 Relaying Disallowed

        Hello, My domain name is bigniter.com, and I’ve been using Zoho Mail as my email service provider without any issues. Recently, I followed the steps outlined in the Zoho documentation to enable Coexistence with Office 365: 🔗 https://www.zoho.com/mail/help/adminconsole/coexistence-with-office365.html#multi-server

      • Enhance Sign CRM integration

        Hello all, I'm working on a custom Deluge script to enhance the integration between Zoho CRM and Sign by using a writer merge template for additional flexibility. I want to replicate the post-sign document integration that exists between CRM and Sign

      • CRM Related list table in Zoho analytics

        In Zoho Analytics, where can I view the tables created from zoho crm related lists? For example, in my Zoho CRM setup, I have added the Product module as a related list in the Lead module, and also the Lead module as a related list in the Product module.

      • Candidate Registration/Invitation

        It would be great to include the 'invite' candidate functionality into some of the automation functions - ether through a custom function trigger or webhook or accessible through an email template.  Currently there is no way to add this functionality into any workflows or blueprint steps which, I find limits the ability to invite candidates to engage with us directly through our candidate portal. 

      • [Free Webinar] Learning Table Series - Creator for Infrastructure Management | A Partner-driven collaborative session

        Hello Everyone! We’re excited to invite you to another edition of Learning Table Series, where we showcase how Zoho Creator empowers industries with innovative and automated solutions. About the Learning Table Series The Learning Table Series is a free,

      • Where we can change the icon in social preview

        Hi, we changed our logo, and the image that appear in preview (ex : when we post a appointment link somewhere) is still our old logo. I did change our logo in the org setting. https://bookings.zoho.com/app/#/home/dashboard/settings/basic-info?clview=false

      • Cadences

        I have just started using Cadences for follow-up up email pipeline. Is it just me or do you find the functionality very basic? For example, it will tell me (if I go looking for it) if someone has replied to a follow-up and been unenrolled; but it won't

      • I have error AS101 when I try to add paypal@mydomain.com to Zoho

        Please help me with this. I tried to call the help line 4 times but don't get any response.

      • VAT on Multiple Expenses

        Firstly, might I say I am based in Ireland, and I'm not an accountant, and therefore my understanding of procedures could be somewhat limited. Scenario. An employee pays for items throughout a month, and therefore their claim for expenses includes multiple items - some of the items are VAT deductible (eg, an IT product) and some are not (eg, a client lunch). Discovery The odd thing in ZBooks, is that whilst it seems possible to add a VAT rate to a one-off item of expense, it is not possible to add

      • Detect and ignore bots in visitors

        The SalesIQ visitor numbers are basically useless to us because there is no bot detection. We get the same bots coming in from the same countries looking at the same pages every day. It can't be that difficult to tell the difference between an actual

      • Agent assignment filter?

        Godo day, We are starting to play with FSM to see if it's going to work for our needs. Now so far we have found that it's very restrcitve in the field department you you have layout rules or can't even hide fields depending on the users roles. We can't

      • DKIM Now Mandatory - Changes to Zoho Forms Email Policies

        Hello Zoho Forms Users, This post is to inform you about an important update regarding the authentication of all email domains in your Zoho Forms account. This year, we are doubling down on our commitment to deliver a secure, seamless, and empowering

      • In arattai received message can't be deleted

        The issue has been noticed in following: arattai app (Android) arattai app (Window) arattai web While the message posted by me may be deleted, the ones received from others can't be. The item <Delete> change to <Report> when the message is a received

      • is it possible to add more than one Whatsapp Phone Number to be integrated to Zoho CRM?

        so I have successfully added one Whatsapp number like this from this User Interface it seems I can't add a new Whatsapp Number. I need to add a new Whatsapp Number so I can control the lead assignment if a chat sent to Whatsapp Phone Number 1 then assign

      • Next Page