Creating Breakout Rooms

Facilitate deeper conversations and one-on-one interaction with Breakout Rooms. Smaller groups of attendees can join adjacent rooms from your main event to have in-depth conversations, creating a more intimate experience. Learn more below.

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.

Table of Contents: 

1. How to Enable Breakout Rooms

2. How to Configure the Individual Breakout Room's Settings

3. Activating Breakout Rooms During a Webinar

3a. Broadcast Messages to all Breakout Rooms 

3b. Reassigning Breakout Rooms during the Live Event

3c. Bringing back Attendees to the Main Webinar Room

4. FAQS

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. 

• 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. 

 

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 

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.