How to Create a Town Hall Meeting in Microsoft Teams

Create a town hall

To schedule a town hall:

Open your Teams Calendar.
Select the arrow next to New meeting +.
Select Town hall from the dropdown menu.
In Details, enter basic info, designate presenters, and more:
1. Enter the event title, start and end date, and description.

Note: The maximum duration of a town hall is 30 hours.

By default, the Organizer is the person who created the town hall.
In Event group > Co-organizers or Presenters, search and select other people who will help manage the town hall.

Co-organizers will have most organizer capabilities but can't change Details (date, time, etc.). Presenters will be able to speak and share content during the event.
Select Save and send invites to apply changes and invite co-organizers and presenters to the event.

In Attendees:
1. Choose whether your event will be available to Your organization (members and guests of your org) or Public (anyone invited or with a link to the event).
2. In Invite attendees, search and select people you want to send event invites to.
3. Turn the Only allow invited people tojoin toggle on to limit event attendance to only people invited directly.
Select Save to apply changes and continue customizing your event.
Select Meeting options to edit more settings.

Note: Some meeting options may be locked depending on policies set by your IT admin.

Select Publish to schedule your town hall event and invite attendees.

Add external presenters

Easily add up to 20 presenters from outside your org to your town hall. External presenters are guests who are federated, unfederated, or anonymous.

When you add an external presenter, they'll receive a unique join link that will allow them to enter the event without waiting in the lobby. Anonymous presenters won't need to sign in with a Microsoft account; they can join using the link and type in their name before entering.

Note: External presenters need a Teams license in order to join the meeting. Additionally, they must join on Teams for desktop. Web and mobile join for external presenters isn't currently supported.

To add an external presenter:

Go to your Teams Calendar.
Select an upcoming town hall and select Details.
Select Add external presenters.
In External presenters, enter the email addresses of the external presenters you want to add.
Select Save and send invites .

Note: External presenters should not forward their links. They are able to join using the same link on up to 3 devices.