Run your event in real time â highlight the current item, send announcements, and keep all guests in sync.
Live Control is available on every plan, including Free â Standard adds a higher guest cap and more concurrent live sessions.
Confirm the following before your event starts:
| Plan | Max simultaneous guests | Concurrent live sessions |
|---|---|---|
| Free | 100 | 1 |
| Standard | 1,000 | 3 |
There are two ways to open Live Control:
Keep the Live Control tab open for the duration of your event. Closing it does not automatically end the live session, but you will lose your control interface.
Share your event link before going live so guests have time to open it on their devices. Once you go live, the "LIVE" banner appears on their screen immediately.
Programleaf uses your event's start and end time to define the event window â the period during which full guest capacity is available. Outside that window the session runs in Test mode, which caps viewers at 5 regardless of your plan.
| Mode | When | Viewer cap |
|---|---|---|
| Test mode | More than 6 h before start, or after end + 4 h, or no event time set | 5 viewers |
| Full Live | Within 6 h of start through end + 4 h | Full plan limit |
Use Test mode to rehearse your setup, check highlights, send test announcements, and verify your connection â all without affecting your event-day capacity. All Live Control features work normally; only the simultaneous viewer count is restricted to 5.
Run a dry-run the day before your event using Test mode. Invite 2â3 colleagues to join as viewers and confirm everything looks right from their screens.
Once you are within 6 hours of your event's start time, the session automatically upgrades to Full Live mode and your plan's full viewer capacity becomes available. No action needed â the transition happens in the background.
If your event time is not set, or is set inaccurately, you will remain in Test mode during your actual event and guests beyond the 5-viewer cap will be rejected. Set your start and end time correctly in the event workspace, and add a buffer of at least 30 minutes on each end to account for guests arriving early or the event running long.
Highlighting tells guests which item is currently happening. The highlighted item appears with a distinct background color (set in your design settings) on all guest screens simultaneously.
If a guest joins while a session is live, they immediately see the current highlighted item â no refresh needed.
Announcements are broadcast messages that appear as a banner across all guest screens. Use them for: delays, direction changes, reminders, or important notices.
Keep announcements short and action-oriented: "Please take your seats â ceremony begins in 2 minutes." or "Dinner is served â please proceed to the dining hall."
Ask guests a question and watch results tally live on every screen, without leaving the Live Control page.
Only one poll can be open per event at a time â launch a new one after closing or ending the current one.
Use a poll for a quick show of hands â a favorite-moment vote at a wedding reception, a session preference at a conference â anywhere a fast, visible read on the room adds something.
A guest can only vote once per poll â their choice is remembered on their device, so reloading the page shows their vote and the live results instead of the vote form again.
While live, a viewer count is displayed at the top of the Live Control page. This is the number of guests currently connected to your live session. The effective cap depends on whether you are in Test mode or Full Live mode â see Event window & test mode above.
The viewer count reflects active connections, not unique devices. A guest who refreshes their page will briefly drop and re-add to the count. Guests on slow connections may reconnect automatically.
Guests who attempt to join when the viewer cap is reached will see a "session full" message. In Test mode this cap is 5; in Full Live mode it is your plan's guest limit.
Every item's heading and content are directly editable on the Live Control page â there's no separate edit mode to enter. Just click into the text and start typing.
If you click away from an item without saving, the edit is discarded automatically and the original text is restored â there's no separate "cancel" action needed.
The toolbar has a Lock Edit / Unlock Edit toggle that applies to the whole page. While locked, item text is read-only and the per-item action buttons are hidden â a quick way to prevent accidental edits once you're focused on running the event.
Swaps and moves apply instantly and sync to the server in the background. If the sync fails, the change is automatically rolled back and an error is shown â there is no manual undo for a change once it has saved successfully, so use the regular editor for complex structural changes before the event.
Focused view is a guest-side feature that hides upcoming items â guests only see the current and past items. This creates a "reveal as you go" experience for certain event types.
Focused view is available on the Standard plan.
Stopping a live session does not unpublish the event. Guests can continue to view it after the session ends.
If you close and reopen the Live Control tab for an event that is still live, the page restores to the current live state â including which item is highlighted.
Free allows 1 concurrent live session. Standard allows 3. Attempting to go live when your limit is already reached will be rejected with an error â stop one of your other live sessions first, then try again.