Put a slideshow on the screen before the show
Every event has a pre-show reel that builds itself from what's happening in your community. Add your own slides, set it to loop or count down, and play it full screen or record it as a video.
Where it lives Where it lives: Event → Overview → Quick actions → Pre-show Reel
Open the event's pre-show reel
Pre-show Reel is the first button in Quick actions on the event's Overview tab. There's nothing to create: the reel is already built from your community, opening on a welcome for this event and then running through what's coming up, your clubs, contests, featured links, and photos. A short reminder of what tonight is and when it starts comes back about every three minutes, for the people who arrive partway through.
It's made for the screen at a movie night or a concert on the green, but works for anything with a screen and a crowd waiting.
Choose what it pulls in
Reel settings, on the right of the reel page, has an Include list: Coming up list, Upcoming events, Clubs, Contests, entries, and winners, Proposed clubs, Featured links, Start a club, Photo collage, and Highlights from earlier this year. Untick anything that doesn't suit tonight's crowd and Save. The slides keep themselves current, so an event added tomorrow shows up without you touching the reel.
Add slides of your own
Your slides, under the player, is for what only you know: a movie fact, a trivia question, a famous line, or an announcement like where the popcorn is. Pick Fact, Trivia, Quote, or Announcement, then write the text (it's kept short so it reads from the back row), and set Seconds on screen. A trivia slide shows its Answer two thirds of the way through; a quote asks Who said it. Your slides are spread evenly between the community slides rather than bunched together.
Edit and Remove sit beside each slide, so last-minute changes like a raffle winner take seconds.
Arrange the lineup
Lineup lists every slide in running order with the total length at the top. Drag a slide by its ⋮⋮ handle to move it, and the order saves as soon as you drop it. The tonight reminders place themselves, and a countdown, if you turn one on, is always last. New events and clubs that appear later slot in next to where they'd naturally go.
Loop it, or count down to showtime
By default the reel loops until you start the movie, so you can start it whenever you like. Tick End on a countdown instead of looping and set Countdown length (seconds) when you want it to run down to the start; that means starting the reel at a set time before showtime. The box that shows "(your event) starts at (time)" along the bottom of every slide is for people who only glance up.
The welcome, the reminders, and the countdown already say when it starts, so the start-time line skips them.
Play it, or record it as a video
The controls under the player step through slides, pause, pick Transitions, and go Full screen (double-click the screen, or press F). If the screen is a projector with a USB stick rather than a laptop, Record video plays the reel once and downloads an MP4: pick the Resolution, Frame rate, and Quality, then Start recording. Chrome asks which tab to share; choose This tab and leave it in front until it finishes.
The video has no sound, so play music separately. A looping reel records as a clean loop; set the player to repeat.
Slideshows for everything else
Sidebar → Library → Slideshows is the same thing without an event: the Community slideshow is built for you from everything happening in your neighborhood, for a clubhouse TV or a table at the farmers market. New slideshow makes your own, with a name, the parts of the community to include, and your own slides, like a spring events reel or a board meeting loop. Open plays any of them on the same page as the event reel.
An event's pre-show adds the welcome, the tonight reminders, and the countdown; a library slideshow doesn't, because it isn't about one event.
Related guides
Still stuck, or have a different question?
Send us a message and a real person will reply to your email.