Set up a backup stream for show night

AVP.Live does not make or host the backup picture. You send it yourself, for example to a YouTube or Vimeo live event, from a second destination on your encoder or from a second encoder. The panel only stores that service's embed link and points your ticket holders at it when you say so.

Owners, admins and managers can use it. Door staff and view-only team members cannot open the edit page at all. On your event's edit page, press “Stream” at the top and look for “Backup stream” above the “Live stream” box. The panel is hidden once the event has ended.

1. Start a second live stream on a video service that gives you an embed link, and send your picture to it as well.
2. Copy that service's embed link. It must be a full https:// address. The panel shows https://www.youtube.com/embed/… as its example, so use the embed form of the link.
3. On your dashboard, press “Edit” beside your event, press “Stream”, paste the link into “Backup stream” and press “Arm backup”.
4. The panel now shows “Armed”. Nothing changes for viewers: an armed backup stays invisible until you switch to it.

AVP.Live checks only that the address starts with https://. It puts the address into the watch page exactly as you pasted it, and it does not turn a normal watch link into an embed link, so paste the embed link itself.

To change the link later, edit it and press “Update URL”. Pressing it with the box empty clears the link.

Open the link yourself in a new tab before doors to check that it plays. AVP.Live does not check that for you. Do not press “Switch ticket holders to backup” as a test: it moves ticket holders to the backup for real.

1. If your main stream dies and the backup picture is running, open your event's edit page and press “Switch ticket holders to backup”. There is no confirmation box, on purpose, so the fix takes one press.
2. The panel shows “BACKUP LIVE”, and a banner across the top of the edit page says “Backup stream is live.” It stays that way until you switch back.

Anyone with a ticket who opens or refreshes the watch page gets the backup straight away. Screens that are already playing move over by themselves within about half a minute, when the page reloads once. A screen that is still on the countdown moves when it is refreshed.

The backup plays in the other service's player, so it looks different, and nothing on the page calls it a backup. The limit on screens per ticket applies to it too, from the moment the event is live or its start time has passed. You can switch at any time until the event ends, even before the start time: ticket holders who open the page then see the backup instead of the countdown.

• When your main signal is back and steady, press “Revert to Mux stream”. The panel calls your main AVP.Live stream the Mux stream. Open screens return to the usual player by themselves, the same way they moved to the backup.
• Nothing switches back on a timer. You stay on the backup until you press revert, and you cannot clear the saved link while the backup is live.
• When you end the event, the backup no longer applies and the panel is hidden. Screens still on the backup move to the replay page by themselves. The replay is the recording of your main stream, made from what reached AVP.Live, so a stretch where your main signal was down is not in it.
• Open “Stream Deck button (webhook)” under the panel and press “Reveal webhook URL + token” to see a web address and a private token. The token exists once you have armed a backup. A tool that can send a web request, such as a Stream Deck button set up for it, can use them: send a POST request with the token in the body to switch to the backup, and add the word revert as the action to switch back. Anyone who has the token can switch your viewers, so keep it private. If you clear the link and arm a new one, the token changes, so reveal it again.

The backup plays from the other service, outside AVP.Live's ticket check. AVP.Live checks the ticket before the watch page shows it, but the embed link is part of the page, so a ticket holder can copy it, and anyone who has it can try it without a ticket. Whether it opens for them depends on how you set the video up on that service.

• Stream your event with OBS or vMix
• If your event will not go live