Within the last year, more people have started using Discord — just watch our “Closing the lid on 2020” video to see just how many for yourself. With more people using Discord, features such as Voice channels started being used in more unique ways than ever before. Music festivals moved from concert halls to voice calls and physical conventions moved to a virtual environment, hosting their panels within voice channels. With all the local karaoke bars closed, your own Discord karaoke nights probably got a bit more crowded.

As more and more of these bigger audio-centric events pop up, we realized that it can be difficult to manage organized audio events within voice channels. Currently, you’d have to juggle things such as what permissions users have, what roles someone might have that override said permissions, and any channel-specific permissions overriding *those* permissions just to get everything ready to run your voice event… needless to say, it can be a lot!

Just as we’ve made improvements to video chat and running communities within the last year, we’d also love to help make it easier to run audio-centric events. It’s your time in the limelight with the newest addition to your Discord server: Stage channels.

What Are Stage Channels All About?

Stage channels are a new type of channel available for Community servers that allow you to share a focused conversation with select individuals to an audience of listeners. Now it’s easier to understand who’s the focus of the conversation and who’s waiting for their turn to speak.

Stages can be especially useful in situations where you’re running events within your server such as voice AMAs or interviews, reading clubs where each person talks about their book of choice, or just singing the night away in karaoke. No more having people talking over each other thinking it’s their turn or that long awkward silence before someone goes “…oh, am I up?”

Within each Stage, Stage moderators are here to help manage who’s speaking and can add, remove, or mute an existing speaker. Think of them like a stagehand, keeping everything running smoothly behind the scenes while you’re talking to the crowd.

Audience members can also participate by “raising” their hands during an event if they want to speak. Stage moderators can then help them up to the stage whenever they’d like and then move them back to the audience afterward.

When you’re ready to try out a Stage channel, you’ll first need to enable Community on your server, found within Server Settings > Community. You can get the whole scoop on how to set the stage over at our Help Center.

Enter Stage Left

Whether you’re in the spotlight or in the audience, Stage channels are here to help bring everyone just a bit more closer together for audio-centric events of all varieties. It’s not often we introduce a whole new type of channel into Discord — we’re stoked to see what sorts of crazy ways you utilize Stage channels.

Stage channels are currently live on all platforms that Discord is on: Windows, macOS, Linux, iOS, Android, and your browser of choice via the web app. If you’re doing something really rad within Stage channels, send us a tweet at @discord and show us the ways your community is coming together.