We're gonna need a larger Zoom!

[Public service announcement]

Here's something that you need to be aware of to avoid a problem with large Zoom meetings.

I did a comedy show for a corporate client this week. I was one of four comics doing a 15-minute slot in an hour-long show.

The client didn't know how many people would register. He thought about 100, so his Zoom licence would be fine. But with a day to go the registrations had hit 170. He realised that even with the inevitable drop-off from those who register and don't turn up, there was not going to be enough room.

It's not like a real-life event where you can have a few standing at the back, and hope the fire wardens don't do a spot-check, this is Zoom and once 100 have passed through the door, it's slammed shut in the face of number 101.

So he did the sensible thing and bought a large meeting licence, which would allow up to 500 people in. All well and good.

Except, there's one thing he didn't know. And to be honest I didn't know it either. And chances are you might not, so that's why I'm pointing it out.

It's no good just buying the licence you have to assign it to a particular user. I guess it's like buying a time-share but you don't get the week in Majorca until you actually cash it in. You can't just turn up at the airport with your time share vouchers, you need to have a ticket.

So that meant that 100 got into the show and 50 people were left in the waiting room, with nothing to do but read old copies of Good Housekeeping and Country Living.

If you want to ask me about what it's like doing live comedy to 100 people who are mostly muted, but have the option to turn on their mics to heckle, I'm happy to answer those, but to avoid you asking me complicated technical Zoom questions that I don't know the answer to, as I'm the talent darling, not the organiser, I've posted a link to what the nice people at Zoom say about it.

https://support.zoom.us/hc/en-us/articles/201362823-What-is-a-Large-Meeting

It's the second bullet point you need to pay attention to:

* Assigning large meeting licences to users.

Posted with love, to avoid stress in event organisers who aren't wearing brown corduroys.

Jem x

(That's the end of the useful info, so feel welcome to stop reading here, the rest is just me chatting.)

The event itself was brilliant. I devised a new style of performing that doesn't rely on any audience interaction, which is my usual approach. It worked well and I enjoyed the challenge. There's nothing better than finding new ways to solve problems. My fellow comics were all marvellous and I really enjoyed it. But I would have enjoyed it even more if there had been 150 people there.

Admittedly I wouldn't have been able to hear them, and I'd have to scroll through to page 3 of 3 to see them, but it would have been nice to have known that they were there, chuckling away quietly in the background.