The prerequisites for being at least as efficient in the home office as in the office are today a reality that cannot be questioned. Most meetings now take place via Teams meetings and using “regular” Teams meetings with meeting chat, screen sharing, presentation, recording is something that most of us are now good at.

“A Teams meeting is not always an ordinary Teams meeting”

However, a Teams meeting is not always an ordinary Teams meeting, and therefore there are also several different types of Team meetings in Microsoft Teams. If your organization previously used the “Meeting type” Microsoft Teams Live Events, now is the time to take a closer look at “Town Halls” in Microsoft Teams. With “Town Halls” you will be able to deliver high-quality presentations and large-scale events with up to 10,000 attendees (or up to 20,000 attendees with Teams Premium).

In October 2023, I wrote the post “Goodbye to Microsoft Teams Live Events and welcome to Town Hall“. At that time, it was claimed that Live Events would retire in September 2024. If you now read “Town halls in Microsoft Teams” it now appears there that Live Events will not retire in September 2024. Regardless of retirement or not, the message is in any case that you should now prepare for the transition to Town Halls.

As I wrote earlier, a Teams meeting is not always an ordinary Teams meeting. I myself have used Live Events on a few occasions and based on my experiences, I would like to recommend everyone who is going to use either Live Events or Town Halls to make careful preparations before the event is to be carried out. If you want to make a professional impression without technical challenges or misunderstandings, it is of the utmost importance that you plan how the meeting will be conducted, how the meeting will be “configured” and not least who will do what (because this is not a one-man show).

Try, together with some of your colleagues, setting up a Town Hall.

• Define which person should have which role in the meeting so that everyone knows what they should do and be responsible for.
• Send the invitation to a colleague and/or a good friend who acts as an external participant.
• Conduct a test meeting.
• Test again. When the test meeting is completed and you have noted any challenges or mistakes, you can/should at least test once more so that you are sure that you are comfortable with mastering conducting a good Town Hall without unnecessary mistakes.

Once again, a Teams meeting is not always an ordinary Teams meeting. The Town Hall/Live Events solution and technology is here. The important thing (as with everything else) is to have the knowledge of how things work and that you have prepared well.

Useful Resources

Read up on “Get started with town hall in Microsoft Teams“. Then continue to learn the functionality and to understand the differences and similarities between Live Events and Town Hall

• Schedule a town hall in Microsoft Teams
• Customize a town hall in Microsoft Teams
• Attend a Town hall in Microsoft Teams
• Overview of meetings, webinars, and town halls (Intended for administrators and IT Pros who need to ensure that everything is first properly configured in your Microsoft 365 Tenant).