StageFeed: Live Gear Data on Your ProPresenter Stage Display

Your stage display knows the current slide, the next slide and the time. It has no idea that camera 3 just went live, that the stream encoder stopped capturing, or that the pastor’s wireless pack is almost dead. All of that information already exists somewhere in your building. It’s just stuck inside the gear.

StageFeed is the Mac app we built to get it out. This article covers the problem it solves, how it works, how to set it up and who it’s the right fit for.

The Gap on Every Stage Display

ProPresenter’s stage display can show slides, notes and a clock. It can’t show the state of the rest of your production: mic battery levels, which camera the switcher has in program, or a countdown running in another system.

The people who need that information most are the person on stage and the director. They’re both looking at a screen that can’t reach it. So the information travels the slow way, through a whisper, a hand signal or an intercom call, if it travels at all.

How StageFeed Works

StageFeed doesn’t talk to your gear directly. It reads from Bitfocus Companion, which already does.

Here’s the chain:

1. Your gear reports its state to Companion. Companion has around 600 modules, from wireless mic receivers to consoles, switchers and planning software.
2. Companion turns that state into variables, small pieces of live data like a battery level, a look name or a timer.
3. StageFeed reads the variables you pick and serves each one as its own web URL, called a widget.
4. ProPresenter’s stage display editor fills a shape with that URL using Fill → Web.

Each value becomes a box you place and size like anything else on the layout, and your layout stays fully editable in ProPresenter. The box updates live for as long as the service runs.

If Companion can see it, StageFeed can display it. That’s why one app covers your mics, console, switcher and planning software without a custom integration for each.

What You Can Put on Stage

In the video, one stage display layout shows all of these:

• The pastor’s microphone battery level
• The sermon countdown timer from ProPresenter, in an animated widget
• A camera indicator that shows when a specific camera number is in program on the switcher. It’s useful when there’s no tally light on the camera near the screen.
• Stream capture status and capture time. ProPresenter can show its own capture status, and StageFeed can show the same kind of information from other networked streaming encoders like OBS, Resi and BoxCast.

Ready-made widget sets ship for common gear, so you can click a connection and tick what you want:

• ProPresenter: now playing, slide position, countdowns and stage message
• OBS Studio
• Blackmagic ATEM
• Behringer WING
• Planning Center Services Live
• Shure Wireless
• Basics, a set that works with no gear at all

Anything else Companion can see, you can look up by variable name.

Pick the Right Widget for the Data

StageFeed has four widget types. Choosing by the kind of data keeps a stage display readable at a glance.

Data	Widget	Why it fits
Names, numbers, timers	Text	Auto-fits its box, so long names don’t overflow
Mic and pack batteries	Battery	Bars with warning and critical colors
Anything with a numeric range	Progress	A fill that shows how far along a value is
On/off or live/not live	Dot	Changes color by value, so it works like a tally light

Two more tools cover the rest:

• Templates mix text and several variables in one box. Slide $(pro:slide_index) of $(pro:slides_count) shows “Slide 3 of 12.”
• Custom variables let anything a Companion trigger can compute become a widget.

Keep the stage in mind when you design. The worship leader needs slide position and a timer, not every value on the network. Each widget is its own box, so you can build a different layout for each part of the service. Switching between Stage Display Layouts shows how to swap layouts during a service.

Built for a Live Room

A stage display that’s wrong is worse than one that’s empty, so StageFeed is designed around trust:

• Widgets dim when data stops arriving. If a receiver drops off the network, the battery bar dims instead of freezing at “full.” A dead link never looks like good data.
• It opens at login, so the stage display is fed before anyone asks.
• It updates about once a second. That’s right for batteries, names, timers and countdowns.
• It has no dependencies. The runtime is bundled, the app is signed with a Developer ID, and it’s notarized by Apple.
• The live dashboard shows a preview that updates as you style each widget, and group tabs keep a big rig organized.

Setting Up StageFeed

Before you start

• A Mac from 2017 or newer running macOS 13 Ventura or newer, Apple silicon or Intel
• Bitfocus Companion running, with connections to the gear you want to show. It’s free and open source, and if you run a Stream Deck, you probably have it already.
• ProPresenter with a stage screen set up. If that part isn’t working yet, start with our ProPresenter screen setup guide.

1. Install and connect to Companion

Drag StageFeed into your Applications folder and launch it. It opens its dashboard in a web page, and you can get back to it any time from the menu bar icon at the top of your Mac.

Then connect Companion. StageFeed finds Companion automatically on your machine when you click Connect. If Companion runs elsewhere or on a different port, enter the IP address and port.

2. Choose your data

• On Bitfocus Companion 5.0, StageFeed lists your Companion connections for you. Click a connection, tick the variables you want (live values show next to each checkbox) and click Add Selected. StageFeed hides connections that have no ready-made variables.
• For anything else, click New Widget and paste in a variable copied from Companion’s Variables page. The live preview shows its current value right away.

3. Style and organize

Give each widget a name, add it to a group (one group per connection type keeps things tidy), choose a widget type and set the text and background colors. Save it, open its group and copy the URL.

4. Place it in ProPresenter

In ProPresenter’s stage display editor (Screens → Edit Layouts in the video), create or open a layout and insert a text or shape object. On the Shape tab at the top right, turn on Fill, change it to Web and paste the URL. Repeat for each widget.

Test It Before Sunday

Don’t let the first real test happen during the service:

1. Change something on the device and watch the widget. In the video, I switch ProPresenter’s look from Worship to Sermon Full and watch the Companion variable change to match. Do the same with each connection you rely on.
2. Break a link on purpose. Quit Companion for a moment and confirm the widgets dim. Then your team knows what “no data” looks like before they see it live.
3. Look at it from the stage. Stand where the pastor or worship leader stands. If you can’t read a value at a glance, make the box bigger or take something off the layout.

If a widget stays blank, work backward. Check whether the value changes in Companion, then whether StageFeed is connected to Companion, then whether the ProPresenter box has Fill turned on and set to Web with the URL pasted. If a connection is missing from the Companion 5.0 list, it may have no ready-made variables, so add the variable with New Widget instead.

Who StageFeed Is For

StageFeed is a strong fit if:

• You already run ProPresenter and Bitfocus Companion, often because of a Stream Deck.
• Your stage team keeps asking for information that lives in other gear, like battery levels, tally or stream status.
• You run gear with a ready-made set: ProPresenter, OBS Studio, an ATEM, a Behringer WING, Planning Center Services Live or Shure Wireless.
• Your director wants the stage to know what the control room knows, without another person on the intercom.

It’s not the right tool if:

• You don’t use Companion and don’t plan to. StageFeed reads everything through Companion. It works alongside Companion and doesn’t replace it.
• Your computer isn’t a Mac. StageFeed is macOS-only, and a Windows version isn’t available yet.
• You want real-time audio meters. About one update per second is too slow for metering.

One more honest note: the Shure Wireless set ships as a template. Its variable names haven’t been verified against a live receiver yet, and it’s labeled that way in the app. The dashboard’s variable lookup corrects them in seconds.

If you’re brand new to Companion, start with the Beginner’s Guide to BitFocus Companion 4.0 and get a connection working first. StageFeed has nothing to show until Companion can see your gear.

The Whole Thing in One Picture

• Problem: the stage display can’t see batteries, tally, stream status or other systems’ timers.
• Chain: your gear → Companion → StageFeed → one URL per widget → ProPresenter Fill → Web.
• Widgets: text, battery, progress and dot, plus templates and custom variables.
• Trust: dims when data stops, opens at login, updates about once a second.
• Needs: a Mac on macOS 13 or newer, Bitfocus Companion and a ProPresenter stage screen.

Watch the Video

Jump to creating your first widget or importing variables from Companion 5.0. For more on the timers you might show on stage, see 3 Timer types in ProPresenter 7 and Training to use them.

Gear Mentioned in This Guide

Affiliate links — clicking them helps support what we do at no cost to you.

• Dell 27” 4K Monitor (S2725QS) — sharp enough to read small data boxes from a distance, and a good stage confidence display. Buy →

Keep Going

• StageFeed in the shop, with requirements, screenshots and download details
• Bitfocus Companion and Stream Deck for church production
• ProPresenter screen setup for church
• ProPresenter for church: the complete training guide

More training is on the YouTube channel: youtube.com/@CrazyAmazingDesigns.