How to embed a live Q&A widget in OBS for streaming events

If you produce livestreamed events - panel discussions, conferences, AMAs, fan Q&A streams - you have probably hit the same problem twice: the audience wants a way to ask questions, the chat surface they have is messy, and your producer needs the curated questions to appear on the broadcast itself, not buried in a tab on a different machine.

The fix is a Q&A overlay running as an OBS browser source, fed by your moderator's curated queue. Here is how to set it up with Q&A Events. The same approach works in vMix, StreamYard or any tool that accepts a browser source URL.

What you need before you start

• A Q&A Events Pro tier event - the streaming overlay URL is included on Pro.
• OBS Studio (free, cross-platform) or any tool that can render a browser source.
• The audience-facing widget URL (so attendees can submit questions).

Step 1 - get the overlay URL

In your Q&A Events dashboard, open the event you are about to broadcast. The embed panel exposes two URLs:

• Audience widget - the URL attendees use to submit and vote on questions. Embed this on your event page or share it as a QR.
• Streaming overlay - the URL OBS will render. Transparent background, sized for broadcast canvases.

Copy the overlay URL.

Step 2 - add a browser source in OBS

1. Open OBS, select the scene you broadcast from.
2. Under Sources, click the + button and choose Browser.
3. Name the source something obvious like "Q&A overlay" and click OK.
4. In the properties dialog: paste the overlay URL into URL, set Width to 1920 and Height to 1080 for a standard 1080p canvas. Click OK.

Step 3 - position the overlay

The overlay defaults to a transparent background with the active question rendered in a clean card. Resize and drag the browser source within OBS to position it - typical placements are:

• Lower-third strip for talking-head streams. Position the source along the bottom 25% of the canvas.
• Side panel for split-screen layouts. Position alongside the camera feed.
• Full-screen reveal for poll results. Crossfade in when the producer wants the audience focus on the result.

Step 4 - decide between manual and auto modes

Q&A Events offers two overlay modes:

• Auto. Newly approved questions push to the overlay automatically. Good for casual streams where you want the queue to feel alive without producer intervention.
• Manual. The producer picks which question shows next, and when. Good for high-stakes broadcasts where every reveal needs to be deliberate.

Switch modes from the moderator dashboard mid-broadcast if needed.

Step 5 - smoke-test before going live

Before going live, run a five-minute internal test:

• Submit a fake question from your phone.
• Approve it from a second browser tab acting as the moderator.
• Confirm it appears in the OBS preview within two seconds.
• Push a poll, confirm the result reveal lines up with your stinger or transition.

Producer-friendly tips

• Pin the overlay source across scenes so it persists when you cut between camera angles.
• Use a hotkey in OBS to toggle the source visible/hidden - lets you hide the overlay during host-only segments without unloading the page.
• Pair with a poll trigger. Have the moderator queue a poll a minute before you hit a planned segment break - the natural lull becomes the reveal moment.
• Cache the page. If your venue Wi-Fi is dodgy, the browser source caches the last frame even when offline. Worth knowing if you have flaky uplink.

Beyond OBS

The same overlay URL works in any browser-source-capable tool: vMix, StreamYard, Restream Studio, even older XSplit setups. Most studios support transparent browser sources natively now.

If you run streaming events regularly, the broadcast workflow is the difference between Q&A feeling like an awkward chat-side feature and Q&A feeling like a proper segment with reveals, polls and producer-controlled timing. See the streaming use-case page for more, or try a Pro-tier event from EUR 15.