Microsoft Delays Teams Live Events Retirement, Eases Transition to Town Halls

Key Takeaways:

• Microsoft has decided to extend the support for Teams Live Events beyond the previously announced retirement date of September 30, 2024.
• Microsoft aims to ensure a smooth transition to the new Town Halls feature, which supports up to 10,000 participants.
• Upcoming improvements to the Town Halls experience will include features like live reactions, raise hands and advanced production options.

Microsoft is backtracking on its plans to retire Teams Live Events in September 2024. Last year, the company warned commercial customers that this feature would be deprecated by September 30, but those plans unexpectedly changed this week.

Microsoft Teams introduced the town hall experience in Fall 2023. It allows organizations to host different types of internal and external events, including global team meetings, internal broadcasts, fireside chats, all hands, company-wide town halls, and more. The town hall feature supports 10,000 participants, AI-generated Live transcription, Live translation captions, and attendee reporting capabilities.

Additionally, Microsoft Teams Premium customers will gain access to advanced features, including support for up to 20,000 attendees and Microsoft eCDN. They will also be able to host up to 50 concurrent events within a single tenant.

Based on customer feedback, Microsoft has decided to extend support for Teams Live Events beyond the previously announced retirement date. This change allows organizations to continue using Teams Live Events and upgrade to Town Halls at their convenience, making the transition smoother and easier to manage.

“We’ve spoken with customers and understand how important it is to ensure a smooth transition to town hall. We are committed to making it as easy and beneficial as possible for customers to experiment, adopt, and implement town hall as their destination for large-scale digital events, as well as allow customers to upgrade from Live Events to town hall on their own schedule,” Microsoft explained.

New features coming to Microsoft Teams town hall

Microsoft will soon enhance the Town Hall experience with features like live reactions and raised hands. There are also advanced production tools such as the producer role, preview scene support, and queuing shared content. These updates are expected to roll out in the next few months.

In 2025, Microsoft Teams town halls will add new engagement features, including Q&A capabilities, exporting questions to a CSV file, and downloading Q&A reports. Additionally, new device support will be introduced, such as CVI and VDI support and MTR-W support for both presenters and attendees.

Earlier this month, Microsoft announced several new capabilities to improve collaboration, including custom emojis and reactions as well as slash commands. The company also unveiled new AI features and data protection capabilities for Microsoft Teams Premium customers. Moreover, IT admins can now prevent users from sharing content with external participants.