Summary

Large VRChat productions such as festivals, concerts, award shows, and panels increasingly operate like live broadcast environments. In these events a single world instance functions as the stage, while moderators, camera operators, DJs, presenters, and performers coordinate the show inside that instance.

If a staff member crashes during a show, quickly returning to the stage instance is critical. Additionally, many performers and presenters join the stage hours after the event begins for their scheduled segment.

Currently, reconnecting requires the normal world join flow, which depends on UI navigation and multiple API calls. During degraded platform conditions (API latency, matchmaking issues, networking outages), this process can become slow or unreliable.

This proposal suggests a Stage Instance Recovery and Scheduled Access system allowing authorized users to securely rejoin or join a stage instance using tightly scoped tokens while preserving existing permissions and API validation.

Problem

Large VRChat events have operational requirements similar to live broadcast productions. A single stage instance may run for many hours while operators and performers must maintain continuous access.

If a crash occurs, recovery currently requires:

If services are degraded, this process may fail or take too long for live production needs.

In addition, scheduled participants (performers, presenters, panelists, etc.) may need to join the stage instance hours after the event begins.

Proposed Solution

Introduce a Stage Instance Recovery and Scheduled Access system for designated event stage instances using two token types.

Stage Recovery Tokens

Issued when an authorized user joins the stage instance. The token is tied to:

If the client crashes and restarts within a short recovery window, the client can present "Resume Stage Session" and attempt reconnection using the token before falling back to the normal join flow.

Stage Access Tokens

Issued to scheduled participants before their segment begins. These tokens are tied to:

This allows performers and presenters to join the stage instance when their segment begins even if the event has been running for hours.

API Behavior

Under normal conditions, reconnect attempts still perform standard API validation. During a short recovery window, recovery tokens could allow the client to skip certain non-critical lookups and attempt direct reconnection to the existing stage session. If validation fails, the system falls back to the normal join flow.

Role-Based Access

Operator Recovery

Participant Access

Audience

Audience members would not receive tokens.

Security

Recovery and access tokens remain tightly scoped:

Tokens do not grant new permissions; they only allow users to resume or join sessions they are already authorized for.

Benefits

As VRChat continues hosting larger productions, stage-oriented recovery and scheduled access would help the platform support professional-scale events more reliably.