Town Halls

Overview

Town Halls are high-quality broadcasting events (of up to 30 hours) that enable advanced event management with features such as automated email reminders, presenter controls, post-event reports, and recording downloads. In these events, the audience participation is primarily to view and react to the content being shared. When you set up an event you choose the level of engagement by choosing the maximum event capacity. You can have up to 10,000 attendees in View only mode where users can only participate in Q&A. If you choose the 3,000 attendees option (below) then users can participate in more ways such as using reactions, raising their hands, or taking part in polls. You can increase the number of these more engaged attendees from 3,000 up to 100,000 using Teams Events Attendee Capacity Packs.

Licensing

Town Hall organizers need to be licensed. Microsoft’s Modern Work Plan Comparison documents confirm that users can organize a Town Hall if they’re licensed with one of the following Office 365/Microsoft 365 plans aimed at SMB or Enterprise users:

• Microsoft 365 Business Basic/Standard/Premium
• Office 365 E1/E3/E5
• Microsoft 365 E3/E5/E7

There are no licensing requirements for Town Hall attendees, who only require an invite to join.

Teams Events Attendee Capacity Pack

On April 1, 2026, Microsoft introduced the Teams Events Attendee Capacity Pack. These licenses increase the attendee capacity of a Town Hall event from the default amount of 3,000 attendees up to a possible 100,000, and are available in the following sizes:

• 5,000 attendees
• 10,000 attendees
• 20,000 attendees
• 35,000 attendees
• 50,000 attendees
• 75,000 attendees
• 100,000 attendees

Normally with a capacity pack type of license you’d expect it to be assigned to the tenant. However, these Attendee Capacity Pack licenses are assigned to meeting organizers to enable them to create events that allow the larger number of attendees. It’s worth noting that organizers, co-organizers, and presenters don’t count toward the attendee limit.

Licenses are assigned to meeting organizers in the Teams Admin Center, as shown in the snippet below:

History

Prior to Microsoft’s Teams licensing updates from April 1, 2026, advanced features for Town Hall events required a Teams Premium license.

Users licensed with a Teams Premium license before April 1, 2026 could organize Town Hall events with up to 100,000 engaged attendees. They retain this right after April, but only until the end of the current term of their license. If they do decide to renew their Teams Premium license, they’ll only be allowed the standard capacity of 3,000 engaged attendees and will need to purchase Attendee Capacity Pack licenses for bigger events. There’s useful information in this FAQ – search for “Organizers with an active Teams Premium license”.