• Introduction
• Quick start for audience
• Quick start for players
• UpStage
• About the project
• Team
• Get Involved
• Technical information
• About this manual
• Audience
• The role of the Audience
• Join a live cyberformance
• Chat
• Player
• Becoming a player
• Manage your Profile
• Backstage
• Create your own Stage
• Manage your Stage
• Customise your Stage
• Manage your Stage: Media
• Manage your Stage: Chat and Replays
• Manage your Stage : Scenes
• Enter your Stage
• How does the audience see your stage?
• Invite audience
• Media management
• Media in UpStage
• The Studio
• Creating Graphics for UpStage
• Creating Audio for UpStage
• Upload Media
• Modify Media
• Assign Media to your Stage
• Delete Media
• Player : Live Stage
• Enter a live Stage
• Quick overview of tools
• Who is here?
• Chat with the Audience
• Player Chat
• Player: Live Stage Tools
• Audio tool
• Backdrop tool
• Avatar tool
• Avatar Speech and Voices
• Avatar Animation
• Props tool
• Stream tool
• Live Drawing tool
• Object Drawing tool
• Text tool
• Depth tool
• Curtain
• Scenes
• Stage Settings
• Clickable links on stage
• Streaming
• Introduction to streaming
• Sending a stream
• Assign a stream to a stage
• Recording and Statistics
• Statistics
• Chat logs
• Replays
• Screen Recordings
• Admin
• UpStage administration
• Customise your Foyer
• Appendices
• Glossary
• Troubleshooting

About the project

UpStage is a browser-based venue for live online performance (also known as cyberformance). Remote performers ("players") collaborate in real-time using a variety of digital media, and online audiences can participate from anywhere in the world by clicking on a link, without having to download and install any additional software.

UpStage is open source and available to anyone who would like to use it.

Background

UpStage was first developed in 2003 in New Zealand, born out of the fantasies of the globally-dispersed cyberformance troupe Avatar Body Collision and the code-magic skills of artist-programmer Douglas Bagnall. It was launched in January 2004 and since then hundreds of artists and students of all ages from all over the world have created and presented performances in UpStage. Six annual festivals of online performance were held in UpStage from 2007 to 2012. You can find out more at the UpStage website, including video showreels and publications about UpStage and cyberformance.

In 2021, UpStage has been "mobilised" and relaunched in the context of Mobilise/Demobilise, a Creative Europe funded collaboration project between UpStage, Teater InterAkt (Sweden), Schaumbad Freies Atelierhaus Graz (Austria) and the Center for the Cultivation of Technology (Germany). This new version represents a complete re-engineering of the software to remove dependency on Flash, and introduces many new features and enhancements. It comes at a time when interest in online events and demand for purpose-built platforms has surged.

UpStage offers an open-source, artist-led, accessible and customisable online venue, paired with a vibrant artistic and developer community and a rich knowledge base.