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How to use a Zoom Meeting for a virtual event
How to use a Zoom Meeting for a virtual event

Learn about setting up a free Zoom Meeting, adding a co-host, and ensuring your audience is silent.

Zachary Collins avatar
Written by Zachary Collins
Updated over a week ago

In this tutorial, we'll go over the benefits, limitations, and cool features Zoom has to offer when using it for a virtual event.

First, Zoom offers a number of tools. Zoom Meetings is their default/basic tool for hosting a virtual meeting. It's free up to 40 minutes with 100 participants. Zoom Webinar is a more advanced option meant for presenting to attendees, but it costs money and isn't exactly needed for a virtual event unless you plan on having hundreds of attendees at once. For this, we'll focus on Zoom Meetings.

Schedule your Zoom Meeting in Zoom

Login to your Zoom account and click the Schedule a Meeting button. First you'll enter the basic information like event name and time.

For Meeting ID, leave it at "Generate Automatically".

For Video, you can set it to "On" for Host, but leave it to "Off" for Participant.

For Meeting Options:

  • Check "Enable join before host"

  • Check "Mute participants upon entry"

  • Uncheck "Enable waiting room"

  • Check or uncheck "Record the meeting automatically on the local computer" depending on your preference

Add your event to AnywhereSeat

If you haven't done so already, add your event to AnywhereSeat using the + Add Event button. If you already have, you can click the Options button next to your event and select Edit in the dropdown.

Under "Other" as your event type, choose Zoom and insert your Invite Link. It'll look something like this: https://zoom.us/j/9763573831305?pwd=YWF1eFMyVUhvNDhubjQwyd8dmJ4ZDltdz09

Now when patrons buy tickets to your event, they'll be directed to Zoom and will automatically enter your Meeting without entering a Meeting ID or Password.

Hosting your Zoom Meeting

Be sure to logon a few minutes before the event to ensure everything is working on your end. If you have a co-host, ensure they logon early as well! On the Basic Zoom account option, you have 40 minutes total for your meeting, so use your time wisely — the timer starts when your meeting initiates.

If you'd like to do a test Meeting, we recommend creating a separate Zoom Meeting and playing around with Zoom features / following this tutorial well in advance so you don't run into last minute questions / issues.

Setting your co-host

If you have a co-host for your event, be sure to set them as co-host so they can share their screen and do other things. To do this:

  1. Pull up the participants screen

  2. Click the More button next to the participant you'd like to make a co-host

  3. Select Make Co-Host in the dropdown.

Restrict what your participants (patrons) can do

To ensure a smooth event without a patron accidentally unmuting themselves or sharing their screen, you'll want to turn off a few options.

Click the Security button in the bottom bar of your Zoom Meeting (ensure you have the latest Zoom installed).

You will want to uncheck:

  • Lock meeting

  • Enable Waiting Room (so you don't have to worry about manually letting late patrons in during the event)

  • Share screen

  • Unmute themselves

Ensure screen sharing is limited to hosts

You'll want to ensure your patrons can't start sharing their screens during your event. Here's how to prevent this:

Click the up arrow next to the green "Share Screen" button in the bottom bar. In the menu, select Advanced sharing options.

A popup will appear: Ensure the "Who can share?" is set to Only Host.

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