Hey y’all!
Hope you’ve been having a cozy Frosty season so far. 
Today, we’re excited to share some big updates on how you 
GO LIVE. We’ve been listening to how you actually use Highrise day-to-day, especially when it comes to how you discover new rooms, meet up with friends, and attend or host live events. Upcoming changes to Going Live are designed to make the whole platform feel more alive.
Here, we’ll go over “LIVE: V1” – a set of improvements that make hosting simpler, make live events easier to find, and upgrades Boosting functionality.
Background: what “Going Live” looks like right now
Who remembers the ever-full clubs and schools at the top of your directory ages ago? Our travel page has gone through tons of metamorphoses over the years, with the goal of making the rooms you want to be in easier to find.
Right now, rooms can look “active” even if they’re more silent than a tomb inside. It’s not uncommon to find yourself hopping between rooms trying to find something that’s actually happening, and it’s not always obvious which rooms are genuinely active, or just filled with idle avatars, sadly emoting on loop in a corner.
For our host community in HR Live and beyond, the current token-based Broadcast system adds friction. Needing a token makes Going Live feel like a limited resource rather than the default way to kick off a community event, game, show, hangout, or party.
We face the same issue with Room Boost tokens: boosting hasn’t felt as powerful or as respected as it should. When you put effort (or money) into promoting your room, it should feel visible and worth it.
All this adds up: if you’re hosting, it can be hard to feel that your efforts are meaningfully growing or engaging your audience, and if you’re looking to join an event, you can feel left out in the cold void of the directory, endlessly room-hopping.
LIVE V1: Evolving Our Live Systems
Here’s the juicy soundbite you’ve been waiting for!
Hosting Live is now FREE
Room owners will see a new, clearly labeled “Live” button at the top of the room UI.
Tap the Live button to start a one-hour live session, no tokens required.
Next, you’ll see a red Live indicator with a timer, but don’t worry! You don’t have to pay to extend your Live session. You can extend the session anytime.
The directory is getting split into clearer sections
We’re separating what you’re looking for into categories that actually make sense:
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Boost: all the special boost slots now live here, in their own dedicated section, so boosted rooms can shine clearly.
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Live: this only shows actively hosted live rooms, not just rooms that happen to be open.
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Most Popular: we’re tweaking this section to filter out Boosted rooms. Most Popular ranks rooms by how many people are inside.
Live rooms = hosted rooms
In the new Live section, rooms appear only if they’re actively being hosted, and the list is ordered by:
How boosted the room is
THEN,
How full it is
This way, your efforts in Boosting are visibly meaningful, right away. Bump your spot in the directory with your people-power: summon friends and members of your audience to get an even bigger bump in visibility!
And, to keep Live from getting cluttered with abandoned rooms, we’ll (ceremoniously) boot unhosted rooms from this page.
This means that if no host or mod is present, Live ends automatically!
When you’re in a room without the host present, a short countdown will start before the session is cut. This keeps the Live list focused on real, hosted experiences, so when you tap into Live, you’re not landing in a room that’s “technically live” but functionally empty.
Live Tokens are being converted, so nobody loses value
You’ve been working hard to build your following and create engaging experiences; the last thing we want is for this new system to work against you if you have a stockpile of Live Tokens.
Existing Live tokens will automatically turn into Boost Tokens.
The conversion rate is 1 Live Token = 5 Boost Tokens!
This way, you’re already ahead of the competition with a hefty stash of promo power!
Wrap up: what’s next + what it looks like in practice
In short: we’re trying to make the system more transparent, more intentional, and way more respectful of your time, whether you’re hosting or hopping in as a viewer.
In practice, LIVE V1 should feel like this:
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Hosts can go Live whenever they want, run events more casually, and stay visible in a squeaky-clean Live feed.
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Viewers can jump into the directory and instantly find rooms that are actually being hosted right then.
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Boosting becomes a clearer, more powerful tool, especially with the new dedicated Boost section.
And this is just V1! As part of the larger LIVE project, we’re already looking ahead at V2/future upgrades, like richer room effects, more expressive emotes, and “gifting”-style interactions that evolve tipping into something more interactive.
Try it out! We’ll be listening… and watching 
As always, keep the feedback coming! This system is being built to support the way you actually hang out, play, and explore, so help us help you to make your Live experiences bigger and better than ever before.