Discord Stage channels add video for better community events

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Discord, the community building and instant messaging platform, is adding new functionality to its Stage channels. Launched in 2021, Stage channels were designed for intimate, audio-based community events. Now, Discord is adding video, screen sharing and text chat support to Stage Channels, giving creators more ways to interact with their audiences.

Today, any Community server in Discord can access this new feature set for up to 50 audience members. This is double the current limit of 25. Boosted servers will be able to host larger audiences — Tier 2 and Tier 3 servers have a max of 150 and 300 respectively. For all servers, five members can use video and share one screen.

A Discord spokesperson confirmed that server admins can gate access to Stages based on specific subscriber tiers. This allows creators to offer exclusive Stage events for paying members only or specific parts of their audience.

Discord Stages in action

The increased audience size and multimedia experience blurs the line between an audio event and a private livestream. With this added capacity, text chat still will give audience members a way to interact with the hosts.

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As an added quality of life feature, Discord is also adding waiting room music that creators can use before a Stage event launches. This is similar to countdown features seen on other livestreaming platforms.

Discord’s market niche

Since the rise of Clubhouse, most social platforms have been adding similar audio-based community events. Twitter has Spaces. LinkedIn added Audio Events. Meta is experimenting with both Instagram Live and Facebook’s Live Audio Rooms.

But unlike these new players, Discord has always built communities centered on voice chat. This gives the platform a head start in building an audience for this technology. These additional tools and its community focus should help the platform continue to carve outs its niche among a growing list of competitors.

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