Teams Town Halls

Organising a Town Halls event is similar to organising a regular Teams Meeting or Webinar. However, we still recommend that you take time to familiarise yourself with it before attempting the real thing.  See guidance about scheduling a Town Hall below:

More about scheduling an event

More about customising an event

More about cancelling an event

Top Tips for Organisers:

• If the Town Hall will have a designated host (and co-hosts), consult them about the "Meeting Options" to ensure they decide which on/off settings will be optimal for their event.

• For our lunchtime seminars which are in a webinar format, we provide 'organisers' with a handy check list covering key steps to organise the event. This can apply to any format of event. This includes Event Planning Stages; task list at each stage; linked procedure; and event planning roles.  Feel free to copy this example and modify your copy for when organising your events:

  Example Event Planning Checklist

Guidance on this website is included for the event organiser, presenters and attendees. However, we appreciate that for this type of event you may have a dedicated host and co-hosts (such as a chairperson or event coordinator) separate to the organiser (the person administering the schedule). The following guidance is specifically about hosting a town hall.

About the role of host:

You might also be the person scheduling the event; this doesn't change the guidance. Multiple hosts can be designated by the organiser.

When you're a designated host for a town hall, you direct the event flow from start to finish. You prepare in the green room, start and stop the event, spotlight presenters, and more.

Hosting a town hall:

If you've hosted a Teams meeting or Webinar, the experience should be more familiar to you.  Despite a green room (off-stage private area for event officials to prepare), unlike live events, town halls are native to Teams, so there is no studio and no dedicated producer is necessary. You control what the audience sees on screen by sharing content (like in a regular meeting or PowerPoint Live) and bringing the presenter on screen (similar to spotlighting someone in a meeting).

The host (or co-host), organiser, and other presenters can easily see and control who's off screen and who's on screen. See the information linked below for more:

How to host a town hall in Microsoft Teams

Top Tips for Hosts: 

• As always, the key is to schedule some practice events with colleagues to familiarise each other with the new experience, prior to the real thing.
• You might not be the organiser but if you are hosting the event, you can still schedule a practice Town Hall (just like a meeting or webinar) from your own calendar in Teams.
• Remember to check the on/off settings in your "Meeting Options" so they are appropriate for how you want to run your event.
• Options can be switched on/off when scheduling, or afterwards, by opening the event from the calendar (outlook or teams) and choosing "Meeting Options".
• If you will host the event but are not the organiser, make sure you review the "Meeting Options" with the organiser and tune them for your event.
• Agree who will control aspects of the Town Hall, practice how to do it, and stick with it to achieve a smooth-running event for your audience.

Teams Town Halls’ new features gives organisers and presenters more control over attendees and what they can see and access.

• Prior to the meeting, presenters and organisers can enter a green room. This is a separate space that attendees cannot access, dedicated to the hosts preparing for the meeting.
• Presenters and organisers have their own chat that attendees cannot access or see.

More about the changes in presenting styles

Better management of incoming questions for organisers and a focus screen on the presenter will make the experience more in-person like, removing opportunities for attendees to interrupt the Q&A.

More about managing the Q&A

Sharing content is organised so that hosts will produce a more smooth-sailing meeting. For instance, only shared content by the presenters/organisers, and participants invited by the presenters/organisers, will be viewed on-screen by all.

More about sharing content

The attendee experience should be familiar to anyone who’s attended a live event, meeting or webinar using Microsoft Teams. Attendees can watch the live event and engage in Q&A. Attendee microphones and video feeds are automatically disabled at the beginning (and during) the event, and there won't be an open chat.

More about the attendee experience

No changes will be made to the recordings; hosts are able to publish them as normal. This will automatically send an email to the attendees, giving them access to the recording.

Town Halls does allow hosts to extend the expiration date of recordings from the default 30 days to 60 days if desired.

More about Town Hall recordings