How to start a Twitch Watch Party

After months of waiting, Twitch has finally made watch parties available to everyone in the world. Streamers in the US have had access to this feature since Spring of this year, but now everyone around the globe – including UK streamers – can watch series and movies on Amazon Prime Video with their community.

If you’re thinking of streaming a watch party yourself, then here’s everything you need to know. We also have guides to setting up your first stream, and information on how to download Twitch videos.

How to start a Twitch Watch Party

First, Twitch Watch Parties are only doable (within the streaming platform’s terms & conditions) through Amazon Prime Video. Therefore, you’ll need an account with this service. You can sign up on the Amazon website now.

Prime Video is £5.99 a month. or £7.99 if you want to bundle it with a full Amazon Prime membership. Benefits include next-day delivery on millions of items and access to two million songs on Prime Music. In the US, this is $8.99 on its own or $12.99 with all the other Prime benefits.

Once you’ve got that sorted – and all your software and hardware in place – here’s what you need to do:

• Sign into Twitch and head to your Stream Manager by clicking in the top right-hand corner on the web version of Twitch and clicking on ‘Creator Dashboard’

• Add the Watch Party to your Quick Actions

• Click on ‘Watch Party’

• Sign into your Amazon Prime account on the pop-up

• Authorise Twitch access to your Amazon Prime account

• Select the series or movie you want to watch

• Go live as you usually would, but disable all audio and video sources except your webcam and mic
• Resize your webcam capture to fit the full screen – as this will ensure that it appears correctly above Chat

• Select ‘Start Watch Party’ and the Prime Video content will automatically stream to the video player on your channel after 15 seconds

• To see it yourself, either select ‘Open Watch Parties in New Tab’ or go to your channel page to watch with your viewers

As a note, you can only authorise content that’s included with your Prime Video subscription. Any shows or films on Prime Video Channels, IMDBtv and content rented or purchased on Prime Video are not supported on Twitch Watch Parties at this current time.

You can find more issues with troubleshooting Watch Parties on Twitch’s help and support pages. 

How do my followers join my Twitch Watch Party?

For someone to join your Twitch Watch Party, they’ll also need to be an Amazon Prime Video subscriber. The content also needs to be available in their region, and they must be watching on the desktop web version of Twitch.

Once your stream is live, it will appear in the ‘Watch Parties’ category of Search. When a viewer finds your stream, they will also have to authrorise Twitch use on their Prime by signing into their Amazon account.

Can I stream Netflix or any other platform on Twitch Watch Parties?

This is currently the only approved method from Amazon for Twitch Watch Parties. If you attempt to stream Netflix or Disney Plus on the platform, you’ll be violating the terms and conditions of Twitch and you could be banned.