Let users join the video stream without buying tickets?

[joeytwiddle]

Some events are free to attend, but I'm worried some people don't join the stream because they are scared off by the need to sign up and "buy tickets".

For example, if I share the stream link with friends, they will see this screen.

Could we get more viewers without it?

My suggestion:

• If enabled by the event organiser, allow unregistered users to join the video stream page.

• Regarding chat, either don't show the chat to unregistered users, or make the chat read-only, with a call-to-action asking the user to register if they want to comment in the chat.

Concept:

(blurring is just for GitHub)

What do you think?

[iamareebjamal]

It may be possible for them to join without buying ticket but not possible to join without creating an account. Because for both Jitsi and BigBlurButton, we need to create a user for them to join the meeting. We cannot control bigbluebutton chat

[joeytwiddle]

I see, thanks. I know developers need to balance the desire for a feature with the difficulty of achieving it!

Perhaps instead we could try to mitigate (reduce) the issue. For example we could change:

You need to log in to get a ticket for this event before you can join it online.

to

Please log in and get a ticket to join the event. Tickets and registration are free!

(I see the text in this file but it has also been translated to many languages already.)

[tillea]

Hi, I guess the original request came from me on FOSSASIA speakers channel on telegram (since I was not aware of this Github repository). My point is, that I'd be happy with any direct single click access without registration. I was told that there is also a youtube stream. I think a button "View stream on youtube" would serve my request as well. Kind regards, Andreas.

[mariobehling]

It will take us a bit to think this through, because every event is unique and the current pop up message was the most generic one. We are not using the platform only for the FOSSASIA Summit. There are also meetups, company workshops, open and closed registration events. So, each use case needs another message. Also integration-wise, while we will be supporting vimeo, youtube etc. more our vision is to create an integrated streaming solution or solutions like Peertube. So, rather than supporting and directing our resources on proprietary platforms we would take a bit more time and get an implementation that free and open.

[tillea]

On Mon, Mar 22, 2021 at 10:26:03AM -0700, Mario Behling wrote:

It will take us a bit to think this through, because every event is unique and the current pop up message was the most generic one. We are not using the platform only for the FOSSASIA Summit. There are also meetups, company workshops, open and closed registration events. So, each use case needs another message. Also integration-wise, while we will be supporting vimeo, youtube etc. more our vision is to create an integrated streaming solution or solutions like Peertube. So, rather than supporting and directing our resources on proprietary platforms we would rather take a bit more time and get an implementation that free and open.

I perfectly agree with peertube (as we used for DebConf). So no matter what streaming platform you use or whatever you implement: I think my idea became clear that users want a simple one click solution for those events that are free by definition. Kind regards, Andreas.

PS: This "we support other events" brings me back to issue fossasia/open-event-frontend#7040: It not intuitive that users are ending up on a generic eventyay page instead of at least the event that was visited in the previous session.

[rolandturner]

I'd suggest that there is nothing about this request that has anything to do with proprietary platforms. The side bar code already knows how to deal with a variety of services which both require identity information (BBB, Jitsi) and don't (YouTube), and it's the latter which require the least specific integration.

While some event organisers — particularly those not entirely sharing F/OSS values — might prefer to make it difficult or impossible for people to see the stream without registration or login, it would seem a useful and worthwhile capability to make the stream readily available without login for those events that would like to make it available.