Use live chat when you want attendees, speakers, and your team to talk alongside an embedded session on the HeySummit talk page. It works as part of HeySummit's Interactive Features, alongside Q&A and polls, for talks that use an embedded live stream or pre-recorded video. Interactive Features are available when your HeySummit plan includes live chat. They are not shown for public events or Public Access talks, because those pages can be viewed without registration.
Turn on Interactive Features for the event
Go to Event Settings > Event Experience > Live & Replay Experience.
Open the settings and turn on Enable Interactive Features.
Choose whether to show or hide the Chat, Q&A, and Polls tabs by default.
If you want questions to be reviewed before they appear, turn on Require Q&A Approval.
Save your changes.
These settings become the default for talks broadcast as embedded live streams or as pre-recorded videos. If you need one talk to behave differently, open that talk's Advanced Settings, choose Override event defaults and turn on Turn Interactive Features On?, and adjust the interactive options for that talk.
Chat with alternative broadcasts
Alternative broadcasts use Separate chat rooms by default. In Event Settings > Event Experience > Live & Replay Experience, choose Share with main broadcast under Alternative broadcast chat rooms to share each session's chat, Q&A and polls with its alternatives, where enabled. Unrelated sessions remain separate. Ticket restrictions still control each video, but do not make a shared conversation private. See Alternative Broadcast Options For Talks for setup and privacy guidance.
Preview the attendee experience
After Interactive Features are enabled, use the talk's preview page to check the broadcast view. The chat area appears when the talk page is in its live broadcast view, so it may not appear on the normal attendee page until the scheduled session starts. During the live broadcast, attendees can post messages and react with emojis. Event team members can moderate chat, Q&A, and polls, and room-specific host or moderator assignments can also grant controls. The attendee moderator email setting assigns a role but does not by itself guarantee room management; see the moderator guide before relying on it.
Reply to a message
Choose Reply beneath the message you want to answer.
Check the Replying to label above the message box, then type and send your response.
Open the reply count beneath the original message to expand the conversation. Select it again to collapse the replies.
Replies stay grouped beneath the original message. Replying within a thread keeps your response in that same thread. To send a separate message instead, dismiss the Replying to label before sending.
Mention someone
Type @ and start entering a name, then select the person from the suggestions. You can use the arrow keys to move through suggestions and Enter to select a person. Press Escape to close the suggestions. Suggestions only include people available to your session; typing a name by itself does not select a person.
Format a message
Bold: surround the text with two asterisks on each side.
Italics: surround the text with one asterisk or underscore on each side.
Inline code: surround the text with backticks.
Links: paste a web address to make it clickable.
Line breaks: press Shift + Enter while typing.
What happens after the live session
On replay pages, the live chat component may still be shown in read-only mode. Attendees can read messages and expand existing threads, but cannot send messages, reply or react. If you want the conversation to continue after the broadcast, enable comments for the event. Comments appear below the embedded video after the session has finished. Only people with access to the talk can see its interactive features. That usually means logged-in attendees with the right ticket access, speakers for the session, and your event team.
Using provider chat instead
For some embedded live stream providers, HeySummit can use the provider's native chat instead of the HeySummit chat. When a provider supports this, you will see an Auto-embed [provider] Chat? option in the broadcast provider settings.
Related articles
Review and export chat activity
Open Content & Schedule > Reports > Chat & Polls to see participation across sessions. Filter by session or scheduled session date and choose Export chat for one CSV of retained messages. See Review and export session chat and poll activity for date filters, room coverage and the emailed download link.