How can I create breakout rooms?

Note: This feature is available for Enterprise accounts only. 

New as of 09/20/2022: Select to either manually create and assign breakout rooms or have them auto-generated and automatically send attendees and presenters into. 

Breakout rooms are structured as live webinars on BigMarker, and attendees can interact within the breakout room in the same way they would other live webinars. They can talk to one another using microphones, engage with one another and presenters through public chat, and more. Interactive features like Q&As, handouts, and polls are also available in breakout rooms. 

These can also be used for sessions, formatted as live webinars, that can be joined from your main Series. On event day, guests will enter the breakout session just as they would any other live agenda session in the event, either through the Agenda page or a reminder link sent by email.  Once they’ve entered the breakout session, guests are then automatically split into smaller discussion rooms.

 

How to Enable Breakout Rooms

1. On the Manage Webinar dashboard, click to Breakout Rooms

2. Toggle Breakout Rooms ON and click Save 

From there, you will have all the settings appear to create and adjust your breakout rooms. 

Settings available for adjusting are: 

• Set time limit on breakout room - enable your breakout rooms to close after a certain amount of minutes or disable this to manually close them. 
• Interactive vs. Webcast mode - select the mode which you would like your breakout room in 
  • Interactive Mode: allows attendees to interact within the breakout room. They are able to turn on their microphones and cameras, share their screen, slide presentations and interact with whiteboards.
    • Note: Hosts can enter breakout rooms while they’re in session and manually activate and deactivate individual microphones and cameras. 
      
      
  • Webcast Mode: allows attendees to interact with presenters through engagement features (Chat, Q&A, Polls, etc.) without the ability to turn on their microphone and cameras, share their screen and more. 

It's important to note the differences between Interactive and Webcast mode: 

• Interactive Mode: This mode is highly interactive and in real-time, with no delay for a seamless experience. This mode is best suited for meetings and round tables where attendees participate with mics + webcams actively. Webinars in this mode have stricter system requirements: attendees must have high-speed internet and a modern browser like Chrome or Firefox.
• Webcast Mode: This mode streams on a 10-15 second delay, with greater branding and customization of the audience experience, higher video quality, and compatibility with a larger number of browsers and devices. It is best suited for events where your audience only interacts via Chat, Q&A, Polls, but not via mic + webcam.

Note: Webcast mode will be automatically required and changed for your event once your webinar reaches 50 registrations. This is because Webcast mode is more optimal for larger audiences. 

You can select to either manually assign your attendees to certain breakout rooms or have them automatically be sent to breakout rooms. Click either Manually assign breakout rooms (this will follow the configuration settings for individual breakout rooms steps) or Auto generate breakout rooms to set this preference.

Auto-generating breakout rooms will generate as many breakout rooms needed for the amount of users in your webinar. You will need to select the amount of people you would like per breakout room using the dropdown menu. With this setting, both presenters and attendees will be sent automatically to rooms, where presenters will be sorted first.

Note: Auto-generated breakout rooms cannot be recorded. 

For Manually assigning breakout rooms, please set:

• Allow attendees to return to main room themselves - enable attendees to return to the main room themselves or disable this to automatically send them back to the main room when the breakout room has closed.
• How will unassigned attendees enter the breakout room? - pick whether you would like unassigned attendees to enter the breakout room randomly, manually, or stay in the main room. 
• How will unassigned presenters enter the breakout room? - pick whether you would like unassigned presenters to enter the breakout room randomly, manually, or stay in the main room. 
• How many Breakout Rooms do you plan to use? - set the amount of breakout rooms that will be available to go to during the event. 

Click Save when finished. 

You can enable breakout rooms on any of your event's webinar dashboard. For Virtual Events, there is a slight difference. For Virtual Events, you will need to go to the main Series dashboard, and create sessions on the Sessions section. When creating, associate your sessions with the agenda tied to your main event. From there, you can go to that session's backend and create breakout rooms as needed. 

This way, those sessions can be joined and registered from the agenda, while having the great benefits of breakout rooms within the session. 

Once you've set the amount of breakout rooms you plan to have for your event, they will populate at the bottom where they can be pre-configured. Here, adjust the room's name, about description, assign presenters to the rooms, and more. 

 

 

Configuring the Settings for Individual Breakout Rooms 

1. Click the three dots on the right hand side to bring up the breakout room's settings. 

2. Click which setting you would like to adjust: 

• Edit Room - edit the room's name and description 
  
  
• Delete Room - delete the breakout room 
• Assign participants - Assign presenters and attendees to the room 
  
  
• Import Participants - Import a CSV file of presenters and attendees to the room

 

Activating Breakout Rooms During a Webinar

During the session, you will be able to manage the breakout rooms all from the main room. You can start, stop, reassign assigned attendees/presenters, bring attendees/presenters back into the main room, send notifications to breakout room attendees and more. 

Note: Studio mode does show on both Interactive and Webcast mode for presenters/hosts/admins.

However, Interactive mode will not show the customizations set in Studio to attendees in the breakout rooms while Webcast mode will. 

1. In the main webinar room, a breakout room icon will be located at the bottom of the engagement panel. 

2. Click the breakout room icon, then click Start Breakout Room 

For auto-generated breakout rooms, you will start your rooms as the below:

Once the breakout session begins, assigned attendees will be automatically redirected to their breakout room. Unassigned attendees will proceed to their breakout room in the way you selected in the settings described above. 

 

Broadcast Messages to all Breakout Rooms 

You can send chat messages to all the attendees and presenters in the breakout rooms, such as heads up on ending the breakout rooms or important announcements. 

Within the breakout room icon, you can type your message in the Broadcast Message text field and then click Broadcast Message to All to send the message to all the rooms. 

Watch the video below to see this in live action: 

 

Reassigning Breakout Rooms during the Live Event

You have the option to reassign the amount of breakout rooms, meaning you can reduce the amount of breakout rooms during the live event. 

Click Reassign and shorten the amount of breakout rooms accessible for attendees. 

From there, use the dropdown menu to select the amount of breakout rooms you'd like, then click Next: Assign & Confirm 

This will reduce the amount of breakout rooms available for attendees. 

 

 

Bringing back Attendees to the Main Webinar Room 

When the breakout rooms are coming to an end, you can manually end them or they will automatically end depending on the settings 

To manually close breakout rooms, click Close Breakout Rooms to bring everyone back into the main session. 

 

FAQS

If I share audio/video in the main session room, will it be available in the breakout rooms?

• No, each room displays its own audio and video.  

Can I see which attendees are in a particular breakout room?

• In the dropdown menu, click the arrow icon of each breakout room to see the list of attendees present. 
  
  
  
  

Can attendees leave a breakout room before the session ends?

• Breakout attendees can leave their breakout room before the session's scheduled end time. But upon leaving, they will not be able to re-enter the main session unless the host manually closes the breakout room first.  

What mode do breakout room sessions use?

• Breakout Rooms are in Up to 64 Camera Mode, meaning that 64 cameras and microphones can be shared in an individual session at the same time.  

How many attendees are allowed in breakout rooms?  

• There is no maximum on the number of attendees in a breakout room. However, only 64 cameras and microphones can be shared at any one time.
  
  

Can I change the breakout room's name during the live session? 

• Yes! Before starting a breakout room, you can click the three dots and click Rename Room to change the name.