Running a stage with Stage

Stage turns a normal Discord voice channel into a moderated stage. While a session is live, everyone who joins is server-muted. Members press Raise hand to ask to speak, and hosts accept them — the bot unmutes them automatically.

You control everything from Discord (buttons and slash commands) or from the web dashboard, which updates in real time.

Stage never records or listens to audio.

1. Invite the bot from the homepage or the dashboard and pick your server.
2. In Server Settings → Roles, drag the bot's role above the roles of members it should mute. Discord only lets bots mute members below their own role.
3. Turn a voice channel into a stage: run /stage setup channel:#voice or open Dashboard → Settings → Stage channels and add it.
4. Start a session with /stage start or the Start session button on the Live stage page.

That's it — everyone who joins the channel is muted and can raise their hand in the control message.

Stage needs these permissions in your stage channels and the channel where its control message is posted:

• View Channels, Send Messages, Embed Links, Read Message History
• Connect — to see who is in the voice channel
• Mute Members — the most important one; without it nobody can be muted or unmuted

Check channel-specific overrides too: a channel can deny a permission the bot has server-wide. The Overview page in the dashboard lists every missing permission.

A session is one live event in a stage channel. Start it with /stage start [channel] [title] (defaults to the voice channel you're in) or from Live stage in the dashboard.

When a session starts, Stage posts a control message with a Raise hand button and mutes everyone who isn't staff or an accepted speaker.

End it with /stage end, the End button in the host controls, or the dashboard. Nobody is disconnected: speakers are muted again — or everyone is unmuted, if Unmute everyone when a session ends is turned on.

Press Raise hand under the control message. You get a private reply showing your position in the queue — only you can see it.

From that private reply you can Lower hand (if the server allows it) or, once you're on stage, Leave stage.

You must be in the stage's voice channel to raise your hand. Hands are handled first come, first served.

Hosts run the stage with /stage manage in Discord (a private panel only you see) or from the Live stage page in the dashboard:

• Accept a raised hand — the member is unmuted and becomes a speaker.
• Reject a raised hand.
• Remove a speaker — they're muted again (if that setting is on).
• Pause hand raising, e.g. for a Q&A break, and resume it later.
• Clear the queue — rejects all raised hands at once.
• End the session.

Every action is re-checked against the member's live Discord roles and written to the audit log.

The control message shows the session status (live, paused or ended), who is on stage, the next people in the queue (up to 5, then "+N more") and the Raise hand button.

If it was deleted, run /stage panel in the channel — it is posted again. Stage also restores it automatically during its regular check.

Its heading, description, color, footer and banner image can be changed under Settings → Control message.

The control message can show a banner image:

• Server banner — under Settings → Control message: the Stage default banner, your own upload, or none.
• Session banner — hosts can set a different banner for a single session on the Live stage page, or turn it off.

Uploads must be PNG, JPEG, GIF or WebP and at most 4 MB. A session banner overrides the server banner.

• Muting only happens while a session is live in a configured, enabled stage channel.
• Stage uses Discord's server mute. It never mutes the server owner, itself, staff or members whose role is above the bot's.
• A Discord server mute applies in every voice channel. So when someone moves to another channel, Stage lifts the mute it set. Mutes set by moderators are never touched.
• Speakers who leave the channel lose their spot (if Speakers who leave lose their spot is on) and are muted again when they come back.
• After restarts or outages, Stage compares its records with the real voice channels and fixes any difference.

Sign in with Discord on the dashboard. Stage only asks for your profile (identify) and your server list (guilds) — never your e-mail or messages.

You see a server when the bot is in it and you have Manage Server, Administrator, or a role with a Stage right there.

Your sign-in lasts 7 days. You can delete all your dashboard data any time from your avatar menu → Delete my data.

• Overview — live sessions, quick actions and the bot's permission check.
• Live stage — start sessions and run them: accept, reject, remove, pause, clear, end, session banner.
• Speakers — who is on stage now and who spoke recently.
• Queue — raised hands in order.
• Sessions — history of past sessions with participants and speakers.
• Settings *(admins)* — stage channels, muting, speakers, raised hands, control message.
• Audit log *(admins)* — every action taken in Stage, from Discord and the dashboard.

Everything updates in real time; there's no need to reload.

Any regular voice channel can become a stage. For each one you can set:

• Control panel channel — where the control message is posted (default: the voice channel's own chat, or the server default).
• Default title for sessions in that channel.
• Auto-mute participants on or off for that channel.

Channel changes apply immediately. Removing a channel never deletes it from Discord.

• Mute people when they join — everyone except staff and accepted speakers.
• Mute speakers again when they're removed.
• Speakers who leave lose their spot — when they come back they're muted and have to raise their hand again.
• Unmute everyone when a session ends — when off, people stay muted until they leave the channel.

• Allow more than one speaker and maximum speakers (1–25).
• Maximum queue size (0 = unlimited). When the queue is full, new hands are refused with "The queue is full."
• Let people lower their hand — shows the Lower hand button.
• Drop raised hands when someone disconnects.

Pausing hand raising is a live control (host panel or Live stage page), not a setting.

Under Settings → Control message you can change the heading, description, color (hex, e.g. #5B9DFF), footer and the banner image. The preview next to the form shows exactly what Discord will display.

Members with Manage Server or Administrator can do everything. Under Settings → Speakers you can give other roles four independent rights:

• Host — start sessions.
• Accept — accept or reject raised hands.
• Remove — remove speakers from the stage.
• Manage — pause, clear the queue and end sessions.

Staff (admins and any role with a Stage right) are never auto-muted and can always speak. Every action — from Discord or the dashboard — is re-checked against live Discord roles.

• /stage setup channel [text_channel] — admins: turn a voice channel into a stage.
• /stage start [channel] [title] — hosts: start a session (defaults to your current channel).
• /stage end [channel] — end the live session.
• /stage manage [channel] — hosts: open private host controls.
• /stage panel — re-post the control message for the session in your channel.
• /stage dashboard — link to this server's dashboard.

Stage stores only what it needs: server settings, who took part in live sessions (IDs, names, times), and an audit log. Ended sessions and audit entries are deleted after 90 days, and all server data 30 days after the bot is removed.

Full details are in the Privacy Policy.

"Discord rejected the mute" or a member who stays unmuted almost always means one of these:

1. The bot is missing Mute Members in that channel — check the channel's permission overrides.
2. The member's highest role is above the bot's role. Drag the bot's role higher in Server Settings → Roles.
3. The member is the server owner — Discord never allows muting the owner.
4. The member is staff (admin or a role with a Stage right) — staff are intentionally never muted.

• Slash commands can take a few minutes to appear after the bot joins. Restart Discord (Ctrl+R) if they don't show up.
• "This interaction failed" usually means the bot was restarting — try again after a few seconds.
• Make sure the bot can View Channels and Send Messages where you use it.
• Old control messages from ended sessions no longer work — use the current one or /stage panel.

You need Manage Server, Administrator or a role with a Stage right in that server, and the bot must be a member of it. Sign out and back in to refresh your server list from Discord.

Try again in a private window and make sure you click Authorize on Discord's page. If it keeps failing, open a ticket on our support server and tell us the time you tried — we can look it up in our logs.