Using Stage Display

Stage Display is a private confidence monitor for whoever’s on stage — a second screen showing what’s live, what’s next, presenter notes, a clock, and messages from the booth. The audience never sees it; your speaker never has to turn around.

What’s on the Stage Screen

• CURRENT— A live mirror of exactly what the audience sees, labeled with the current item, plus the current slide’s presenter notes underneath.
• NEXT — A preview of the upcoming slide or item, so no transition is ever a surprise. (It’s spoiler-aware: an upcoming Pixelate image shows obscured, so answers don’t leak to the stage.)
• Clock and timer — The time of day, plus a running count-up timer for the current document.
• Message banner — Anything you send from the control panel, in can’t-miss orange.

Songs get their own layout: the current lyric section huge in the middle, the next section below it — built for worship leaders mid-set.

Opening Stage Display

1. Go to Preferences → Display and enable Stage Display. (If the toggle is unavailable, Stage Display isn’t included in your current plan.)
2. Connect a second external screen — the stage monitor — beyond your audience display.
3. In the right sidebar’s display menu, use the Stage Display section: Open Stage Display to [screen] (Full-Screen) or windowed. Close Stage Display shuts it off.

The stage screen must be a different physical display from the audience output — with a typical setup that means your Mac, the audience projector, and a stage-facing monitor.

Controls While Presenting

With Stage Display active, the right sidebar gains:

• An Audience / Stage / Both preview switcher above the display preview, so you can watch either output from the booth (cycle it with Cmd+Shift+S).
• A message field — type, hit Send, and it appears on the stage banner. Messages stay up until you clear them, so “WRAP UP” keeps nagging until acknowledged.
• The document timer with a reset button. It’s per-document and pauses when you switch away, resuming when you return.
• A Hide Next Slide toggle — blanks the NEXT preview when the upcoming item is a surprise (winner reveals, secret answers).

Tips

• Presenter notes come from the Notes… field on each slide in Slides documents — write them while you build and they’re on the stage screen automatically.
• Agree on message shorthand with your speaker beforehand: “5 MIN,” “SLOW DOWN,” “MIC UP.”
• The count-up timer plus notes turns Stage Display into a self-serve teleprompter for student preachers.