Set up your station

This guide takes a new station from sign-up to a station page you can share, ready for a first broadcast. It takes a few minutes. If you haven't read how Evenings works yet, it's a short read and makes the rest of this easier to follow.

Choose your station name

Your station's address comes from the name you sign up with. Sign up as "Sample Radio" and your station lives at evenings.fm/sample-radio. The last part of that address, sample-radio, is your station's slug, which players and the API use to find you.

You can change how your name is displayed whenever you like, but the address stays the one you signed up with. Pick a name you're happy to see in your link. If you ever need a different address, email us and we'll sort it out with you.

Sign up

1. Go to evenings.fm/signup.
2. Fill in Email, Station Name (at least 4 characters), Password (at least 8 characters) and Confirm Password.
3. Click Sign up.

If you see "Email or station name already exists", that email already has an account, so log in instead or use a different address. If you see "something went wrong", the most common cause is that another station already has the address your name would create. Try a slightly different name.

Once you're in, you'll land on the Library tab of your dashboard, where your recordings and uploads live. Next to it are Explore, Calendar and Account. Along the top right are Upload Audio, Schedule Event and the red Go Live button. On smaller screens those three show as icons only.

Start your free trial

Every new station starts on a one-month free trial, and you don't need a card to begin. The pricing page shows what membership includes.

While you're on the trial, a yellow banner on your dashboard counts down the days, and the membership panel near the bottom of your Account page shows when it ends. Click Add payment information there whenever you're ready.

If the trial ends before you add a card, your membership is cancelled. Upload Audio, Schedule Event and Go Live then open a "Your Membership has ended" window with a Restart Membership button, and the Account page offers Renew Membership. Your station page and Library stay where they are in the meantime.

Fill in your Account page

Open the Account tab and set up three things now:

• Station Photo. Your station page shows it, and we use it as the cover for anything on air that doesn't have its own, including your recordings until you give them one. Use a JPG or PNG up to 20 MB.
• Station Name. This is the name listeners see. Change it here any time, then click Save. Your address doesn't change with it.
• Email. The address you log in with.

The Account page has a few more things you can come back to later: API Key for building on Evenings, Upload Page for a password-protected page where guests can send you audio, and SoundCloud for exporting published tracks. Subscribers at the top counts the listeners who've signed up for a text when you go live.

Check your station page

Your station page is at evenings.fm/sample-radio, using your own slug, and it's the link to share with listeners. It shows what's on air right now and your latest tracks. Listeners can press Subscribe there and leave a phone number to get a text when you go live.

Once you start scheduling public shows, they're listed at evenings.fm/sample-radio/schedule. Both pages exist from the moment you sign up, so there's nothing to switch on.

Find your stream key

We create your stream key when you sign up. Click Go Live and you'll find it under Stream Key, hidden until you click the eye icon, with a copy button beside it. You only need it for streaming software like OBS or BUTT. Going live from your browser uses it automatically.

You're ready for your first broadcast. Next, go live from your browser, the quickest way to hear your station working. If anything in this guide doesn't go the way it describes, email contact@evenings.email and we'll work through it with you.