It’s Important to Understand “Limitations” of Microsoft Teams Live Events

As many organizations have already moved or are moving to Microsoft Teams, there is often a question of “Can Teams support hosting of large meetings like Town Hall etc on Teams”?

Simply put, the answer is “YES”.

Microsoft Teams has the capability to host large Live Events with 100K+ participants, however it all depends on the customer requirements.

Not Only Teams Live Events, but also Microsoft has acquired “Peer5” for eCDN functionality as well and calling it “Microsoft eCDN“. We will cover it in a different blog.

Let’s look at some limitations of Microsoft Live Events and how can you schedule 100K+ users events.

As per Microsoft document, Teams Live Event has the below limitations:

Feature	Maximum Limit
Audience Size	10,000 attendees
Duration of even	4 Hours
Concurrent Live Events running in a Microsoft 365 or Office 365 organization	15

Note: Only 15 events can run at one time. As soon as the producer joins a live event, it’s considered to be running. The producer who attempts to join the 16th live event gets an error.

For Large Enterprises, sometimes there is a participation of over 10K participants. Then what are our options?

Currently, Microsoft is supporting 20K Attendees through June 30, 2023. This also includes concurrent 50 events as opposed to 15.

What if your organization needs 20K+ participation in Live Event?

Live Events can even support upto 100K attendees but it has to be planned through Microsoft 365 Assistance Program. The team will access additional requirements and help you setup the Live Event.

Microsoft 365 Live Event Assistance Program

Microsoft 365 Assistance Program is called “Microsoft 365 Live Event Assistance Program”.

Microsoft team helps you in Setting up and Running An Event, Webinar, or Large Meeting.

Before An Event

1) Education on how Microsoft live events works across Teams, Yammer, and Stream

2) Determine which service to use based on your needs

3) Review best practices for coordinating, producing and running an event

4) Validate current setup and configuration

5) Plan assistance logistics for rehearsal and upcoming event

Rehearsal For An Event

1) Help producer run a test event to check audio/video feeds

2) Review producer controls

3) Answer questions from producer, event team, and stake holders

During An Event

1) Help producer check audio/video before going live

2) Available to answer producer/event team questions via chat/phone

3) If issues are identified, help provide next steps toward investigation and mitigation

After an Event

1) Review options/steps for sharing event recording

2) Review options/steps for after event reporting

3) Answer any outstanding questions

The Assistance Program is “Free of Cost” for customers using Teams. Please find the form below for request submission.

Microsoft Form

To engage Microsoft, please give them as much advance notice as possible and no less than 4 business days. Please note that remote assistance is on a first-come, first-serve basis depending on if Microsoft have people free during the time of your event.

After completing the form, it may take 24-48 hours for Microsoft assistants to contact you to schedule assistance for your event. Also requests are to be submitted in business hours (Monday 9AM PDT to Friday 6PM PDT).

That’s it Folks! Hope you learned something new!

I am always interested to know different perspectives and learn from you. Please post for any questions, comments. I can also be reached at LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook.