How to go live, step by step

Going live is one button. Being ready for it is the part worth writing down.

Before you touch anything

• Items queued. Prepare lineup on the scheduled show, done the day before. The control room will tell you Line up your items before going live if you have not.
• Light on the item, not behind it. Camera and light.
• Phone on a stand, charging. Holding it for an hour is not possible and the shake is visible.
• A rehearsal already done. Start a rehearsal sells nothing and shows you everything.

Starting

From a scheduled show: open it and use Go Live, or Go Live Now if you are early.

With nothing scheduled: Create show & open control room, which makes the show and takes you straight in.

Either way you land in the control room before you are live. It says Items start once you’re live. — the queue is loaded and waiting, nothing is being sold yet.

Then Go live.

What you see once you are live

• Your video, with Connecting to your viewers… while it settles. Give it a few seconds before assuming something is wrong.
• Lineup — Up next and Queued. Empty, it reads Nothing queued — add items from below.
• The chat. When nobody has spoken it says Chat is quiet — say hello to your viewers, which is advice rather than decoration.
• Buyer view — the show exactly as a buyer sees it. Check it once in the first minute. It is the only way to know your frame is not cutting the item in half.
• Cam off, which puts up Camera is off. For stepping away. Audio keeps running, so do not say anything you would not say on camera.

The first two minutes

Most of the people who leave a show leave in the first minute, and they leave because nothing is happening.

So: say what the show is, say what the first item is, and start it. Do not open with a greeting and a wait for the room to fill. The room fills because something is happening in it, not before.

Start a giveaway is a fair way to hold people at the start — but have the first item running first.

Things in reach while live

• Share an item in chat — puts a listing in the chat for people to buy outside the auction.
• Boost this show — paid promotion, pushed to more browse screens. What a boost is.
• Create a raid — sends your viewers to another seller at the end. They do the same back.
• Edit lineup — reorder what is coming, mid-show.

If the video does not start

Check Buyer view first. If buyers can see you, the problem is your own preview and you can keep going.

If it has genuinely not connected: your upload is the usual cause. Switch from wifi to mobile data or back. Do not restart the show — you lose the room.

Questions people ask

Does a rehearsal look different to buyers?

No one can buy in it. It behaves like a show in every other way, and ends with End rehearsal rather than End show.

How long should a show be?

Long enough to sell the lineup, short enough that you are still energetic at the end. An hour with forty items beats three hours with forty.

Can I go live without scheduling?

Yes — Create show & open control room. You give up the announcement and the countdown.

What if nobody comes?

Run it anyway, for whoever is there. A show with four people in it is four people more than a cancelled one, and shows that run build the followers who come to the next.

More: your first live show, what to say on camera, how a live show works.

← All posts