Teams Live Events is a tool within Microsoft Teams that allows you to create, produce and broadcast meetings to a broad online audience up to 10,000 (The limits that are set might be changed. Check Limits and specifications for Teams). It is particularly beneficial if you are presenting to an audience outside of your business as attendees can join and watch via an URL link and do not required to log in.

Teams Live Events is intended to be used for large-scale information distribution such as large scale meetings, departmental updates, or online training. It is an expansion of the Microsoft Teams Meetings. It uses all the accustomed tools and layout of  regular Teams Meetings, but with the capacity to manage the presentation of the meeting more effectively and, more importantly, go beyond the current 300 attendee restriction.

Teams Live Events has an additional role of a ‘Producer.’ The part is primarily centered on the technical elements of managing the live event, such as controlling the start and end of the session, managing the presenters, and the screens. The permissions for the live event can allow external attendees, organization, or preferred groups of people of your choosing. The attendee participation is more passive in a Teams Live Event as they can only view one presentation screen, have their video and microphones disabled, and only engage in discussions through a controlled Q&A space. The events can also be recorded and stored for on-demand viewing. For the majority of meetings or briefings with less than 300 attendees, a regular Teams Meeting provides all the functionality you need. 

What is the difference between Teams Meetings and Teams Live Events?

The Number of Participants 

Teams Meetings allows up to 300 participants, whereas Teams Live holds an audience of up to 10,000. While Teams Meetings is an excellent tool for any online meeting or presentation with up to 300 attendees, Larger scale broadcast or staff briefing is more suited for Teams Live.

Who Can Attend Teams Live Events

When using Teams Meetings, the attendees include those within the organization or a selected group as well as external guests can join via a link. With Teams Live, the event is available to the public, organization, or a selected group. Also, attendees can choose to join Teams Live anonymously. 

Live Event Roles

The Teams Meetings provide only Presenter and Attendee roles. However, in Teams Live, there is alose the role of a Producer. Essentially, when organizing an event via Teams Live, the following roles will be available: Organiser, Producer, Presenter(s), and Attendees. 

Option to Record

Recording Teams Meetings is only possible for limited purposes, such as teaching. When using Teams Live, the recording has to be enabled for recording to work. 

Event Controls

All allocated roles can speak, share videos, and chat during a regular Teams Meeting. In Teams Live, however, there are several additional controls – only Producer and presented roles can be seen, they can speak, present information, and chat with each other. Attendees can use the Q&A function. Presenters and Producers can select which Q&A to broadcast. Additionally, the attendees can also pause and rewind the live video and watch on-demand (as long as the recording is enabled).

Screen Visibility At One Time

For Teams Meetings, currently, one to nine participants can be seen. When utilizing Teams Live, attendees see one screen at a time with presenters and producers controlling this. Panel discussions will show one speaker at a time, and conversations among more speakers are audio only.

Time Limits

There are no time limits when using Teams Meetings, whereas Teams Live is limited to 4 hours. 

Security 

Be mindful that anyone with a link to the event can join a Teams Live event so, as ever, avoid delicate or confidential data in large or public events.

Millennium Group 

If you are looking to host a larger scale event or if you are interested in getting started with Teams Live Events, we are only a call away (970) 663-1200 to answer any questions.