YouTube Live Setup Guide

Sign in with the channel you'll be streaming from at youtube.com. If your Google account has more than one channel, check the avatar in the top right is the right one first.

Both are in the top-right corner. For a channel going live for the first time, YouTube may require verification and a 24-hour wait before the feature is enabled, so check a few days ahead.

Once you're in the YouTube Studio live control room, switch to Manage in the left sidebar, then click Schedule stream in the top right.

This is YouTube asking whether to reuse the settings from your last stream. Choose New if this is your first time or you'd rather start fresh.

Fill in the title, description and category to match your event. Under "How do you want to stream?" you must select Streaming software — any other option won't generate the stream key we need.

Chat, participant mode and live reactions can all stay as they are — just hit Continue. For a formal event where you'd rather not have comments running alongside, this is where you'd untick Live chat.

Choose visibility to suit the event: Public means anyone can watch, Unlisted means only people with the link can watch, and Private means only the people you name can watch.
For the schedule, just pick the event's start time — going live and ending the stream stays under on-site control, so nothing broadcasts automatically when the clock hits that time.

After you press Done you'll land on the stream settings page. Check these in particular:

What the three latency settings actually mean: normal latency runs about 15 to 20 seconds behind, low latency about 5 to 8 seconds, and ultra-low latency under 3 seconds. Everything else can stay at its default.

Above the player on the right, click the copy button next to the key, then send us the string it copies. The key is the permission to broadcast to your channel, so send it by private message or email — never post it publicly.