Teams Live Events Retirement: Migration Guide to Town Halls

The Teams Live Events retirement took effect on June 30, 2026. Since then, nobody can create a new Live Event by any method. Events scheduled before that date keep working only until February 28, 2027. If your organization still relies on Live Events for company-wide broadcasts, the move to Teams Town Halls has to finish before that grace period ends. Town Halls are the replacement, and they bring better AI features. Here is what changed and how to complete the migration.

Why the Teams Live Events retirement happened

Microsoft announced the retirement in late 2025, giving organizations roughly a year to prepare. Rather than maintain two systems for large events, it chose to focus on Town Halls. They offer better interactivity, stronger AI features and a simpler organizer experience.

Key dates

If you use Microsoft Graph, note that the isBroadcast property retired with the feature. Custom integrations need to use the Town Hall equivalent APIs instead.

Town Halls vs. Live Events

The move isn’t a one-to-one swap. The biggest change is roles. Live Events used organizer, producer, presenter and attendee; Town Halls use organizer, co-organizer, presenter and attendee. The producer role merges into organizer and co-organizer. They now start and stop the event, share content and choose featured presenters.

Attendees participate much as before. They watch presenters and join Q&A, but can’t turn on microphones or cameras. In addition, Town Halls add streaming chat and real-time reactions for more engagement.

Capacity and licensing

Town Halls support up to 3,000 interactive attendees with a standard license and up to 10,000 for view-only broadcasts. Organizations needing 20,000 to 100,000 attendees can contact Teams Events Services at least two weeks in advance.

Licensing changed on April 1, 2026. Several features that used to require Teams Premium now come with Teams Enterprise, including events of up to 3,000 interactive attendees, streaming chat, real-time reactions, eCDN support and immersive events. Organizations with legacy Teams Premium licenses keep coverage for up to 100,000 attendees. For the wider picture, see our summary of Microsoft 365 pricing changes in 2026.

Town Halls support RTMP-In for external encoders. Microsoft also added Secure Reliable Transport (SRT) in June 2026 as a more secure, lower-latency option. The RTMP ingest domain moved to *.rtmpingest.mcr.teams.cloud.microsoft during summer 2026, so check any external streaming setup against the new domain.

AI features that make Town Halls an upgrade

• Live translated captions in up to six languages, or ten with Teams Premium. Teams detects the spoken language automatically and supports up to eight languages in one event.
• Intelligent Recap: organizers, co-organizers and presenters get AI-generated summaries after events. With a Microsoft 365 Copilot license, it can also build narrated video highlights.
• Meeting Recap app (June 2026): one place for AI summaries, video highlights and audio recaps.
• Recaps without recordings: organizers can capture decisions and action items without keeping a recording, which helps with strict retention policies.

Teams Live Events retirement checklist

• Audit remaining Live Events, including any created through Viva Engage, Dynamics 365 or custom Graph solutions. Anything scheduled after February 28, 2027 must move now.
• Check licensing covers the Town Hall features and attendee counts you need.
• Map roles: move producers to co-organizer and train them on its capabilities.
• Test RTMP, SRT and eCDN with practice events, including the new RTMP domain.
• Rehearse critical events and run eCDN silent tests.
• Update API integrations that used isBroadcast.
• Tell organizers and presenters, and update guides, runbooks and SOPs that mention Live Events.

If you haven’t moved yet

Already-scheduled Live Events still run until February 28, 2027. However, you can’t create new ones, so any unplanned broadcast now needs a Town Hall. Automated workflows tied to the old API will break. No admin configuration is strictly required, since Microsoft handles the backend. Without preparation, though, organizers get confused and workflows fail.

Bottom line

The Teams Live Events retirement is more than a feature swap. Town Halls tie large events into Copilot recaps, multilingual captions and the Meeting Recap app. Audit what’s left, move it to Town Halls, and retire the old documentation before the February 2027 cutoff.

Last reviewed: October 2026. Originally published June 25, 2026, ahead of the June 30 retirement.

Sources

• Retiring Teams Live Events: the next chapter (Microsoft Tech Community)
• Switch from Live Events to Town Halls (Microsoft Support)
• Plan for Teams Town Halls (Microsoft Learn)
• Feature comparison: meetings, webinars, town halls (Microsoft Learn)
• Manage RTMP-In for Teams (Microsoft Learn)
• Intelligent Recap for Teams (Microsoft Learn)
• MC1226495: Teams Live Events is retiring