Configure and Manage Teams Meetings, Webinars, and Town Halls
Three different products, not three names for the same thing
A meeting is collaborative: attendees can share, unmute, and chat, all shaped by policy. A webinar is structured: registration, confirmation emails, attendee reporting, and presenters who explicitly grant attendee capabilities. A town hall is broadcast: presenters gather in a green room, attendees are view-only, and questions are moderated through Q&A. Capacity and feature requirements drive the choice, not the label the customer uses.
Where controls live. Tenant-wide meeting settings in the Teams admin center apply to everyone; per-user meeting policies (assigned directly or via group policy assignment to a security group) refine lobby admission, who can present, recording, transcription, chat, breakout rooms, and IP video. Know which layer owns a given control, because a common trap is assuming one layer silently overrides the other for every parameter. Meeting templates and meeting sensitivity labels require Teams Premium.
The Premium line. Custom registration forms, manual attendee approval, waitlists, watermarks, branded experiences, and extended reporting generally require Teams Premium. Town halls scale to roughly 10,000 attendees, with attendees joining anonymously by link. Live events are the legacy broadcast tool; new designs should use town halls.
Worked example. "8,000 attendees, no attendee audio, presenters rehearse in a green room, moderated Q&A." That is a town hall. A large meeting cannot handle that audience model, and a webinar caps far lower.
Rule of thumb. Can attendees speak and share? Meeting. Do they register first and present only when promoted? Webinar. Are they just watching and typing questions? Town hall.