As of October 4th, 2021, Stage Discovery has been sunset. You can learn more about this decision here.

Back in March, we rolled out Stage channels, a new type of Channel in Discord specially designed for audio events where a few users are talking while an audience listens in. Moderators can quickly and easily choose which participants are “on stage” and which are the audience, swapping around roles as necessary.

Right away, you bowled us over with your varied and creative use of Stages. We’ve heard from developers who held live Q&As with their communities, book clubs that did live readings, companies that hosted virtual worldwide career fairs, and countless servers who hosted successful open mic nights, poetry slams, and karaoke. All in all, you’ve hosted hundreds of thousands of Stages.

What we’ve heard across the board is that these events offer up an excellent way to welcome newcomers. This makes a lot of sense: after all, being in an audience is a lot less intimidating than joining an open Voice channel. You get to learn what a community’s all about without getting put on the spot or pressured to fit in right away. Even for fearless social butterflies, the structured, focused nature of Stages offer up an excellent and undiluted dose of the community’s passion and energy to anyone who witnesses it. These make Stages a uniquely easy and stress-free way to find places where you can belong.

Which is why we decided to make it even easier.

Introducing Stage Discovery

Starting today, there’s a new surface in the Discord app: Stage Discovery.

Stage Discovery is a fast way to browse and join open events from all sorts of Communities. You can drop into an audience and plug yourself into its conversation quickly and easily, just like you were passing by and decided to listen in. It lets you find servers and see what they’re about in a fun and effortless way, discovering new ideas, new friends, and maybe even new places to call home.

And if you run a Community Server, hosting publicly-accessible Stages is also a great way to bring in newcomers! If you want to bring in curious users, you can learn how to configure a Stage Channel to appear in Stage Discovery with our Help Center article here, or watch this handy video:

Right now, this feature is available on iOS, Desktop, and Android devices to users in the US, AU, GB, and CA regions. (If you’re outside those regions, we’re working to expand that list as soon as possible!)

Give Yourselves a Hand

There’s nothing better than helping someone find a place where they feel welcome, energized, and empowered to explore the things they love. You’ve already been using Stages to make that happen, and we’re excited to see how Stage Discovery will give individuals and communities more power to find each other than ever before. We also can’t wait to share some Stages we’re planning ourselves, so stay tuned for details!

If you want to learn more about Stage Channels and tips and tricks on how to run one for your community, check out our new Stages website here.

Until then: go forth and explore!