Host a town hall in Microsoft Teams

When you host a town hall, you can direct the event flow from start to finish. Prepare in the green room, start and stop the event, spotlight presenters, and more.

Prepare in the green room

Get ready with other co-organizers and presenters in the green room before starting a town hall. Practice sharing content, check your audio and video settings, and more. While you prepare in the green room, attendees will wait in the lobby until you start the event.

Screenshot showing town hall green room before starting the event

To join the green room:

Go to your Teams Calendar.
Select the town hall you want to start.
Select Join > Join now.

You'll automatically join the green room, where you can set up your town hall before starting the event for attendees. You can bring presenters on screen, set up shared content, and more.

Start a town hall

To start a town hall:

Go to your Teams Calendar.
Select the town hall you want to start.
Select Join > Join now.
Prepare with other presenters in the green room.
Select Start meeting to bring attendees into the event.

The event recording will start automatically. After you start the event, you can start presenting and bringing other presenters on screen.

Notes:

There's a 15– to 60–second delay from the time a media stream is broadcast to when attendees see it.
Once the stream is live, the highest supported resolution is 720p.

Present in a town hall

Bring designated presenters on screen during a town hall or present your own content. Showcase up to nine presenters at a time, or up to seven in Manage what attendees see.

Make someone a presenter

When you organize a town hall, you can designate presenters to bring on screen to share content during the event. To make someone a presenter, change their role when you create a town hall.

Bring presenters on and off screen

Before and during a town hall you can choose which presenters to bring on and off screen. When a presenter is on screen, attendees will be able to hear them speak and see their videos and shared content.

To bring a presenter on screen:

Select People in your meeting controls.
In the Participants pane, hover over the name of the presenter you want to bring on screen.
Select More options > Bring on screen .

To take a presenter off screen:

Select People in your meeting controls.
In the Participants pane, hover over the name of the presenter you want to take off screen.
Select More options > Take off screen .

Tip: Mute presenters when they're not actively speaking to prevent attendees from hearing their audio.

Share content using RTMP-in

During a town hall, organizers and presenters can use an external encoder and enable RTMP-in to integrate different types of media into the event. Experience higher-quality screen sharing, video production, and more.

Screenshot showing RTMP-in content during a town hall

Learn more about using RTMP-in during your event here.

Manage Q&A

Before and during the event, you and other presenters can engage with attendees through Q&A. Depending on event settings, attendees can post and reply to questions while they're waiting for the event to start, as well as during the event.

Screenshot showing organizer view with q&a open

Change Q&A settings

To change your event's Q&A settings:

Select Q&A in your event window.
Select Q&A settings .

Change the event's Q&A settings:

Screenshot showing QandA settings during a town hall

To prevent attendees from posting questions, turn off the Questions toggle.
To prevent attendees from replying to posted questions, turn off the Replies toggle.
To allow attendees to post questions anonymously, turn on the Anonymous posts toggle.

Note: Attendee replies and reactions won't be anonymous.
To require an organizer to review questions before posting them, turn on the Moderate questions toggle.

Note: Once you turn this on, you can't turn it off. Replies won't be moderated.