Microsoft Teams event features at scale

When you schedule a Microsoft Teams event, available attendee features vary depending on the event capacity you choose and your org’s licensing. Smaller events support the most interactive experiences, while larger events prioritize stability and scalability for large audiences.

Event feature availability by attendee capacity

The following table shows which interactive features are available at different event capacity ranges:

Feature Up to 1,000 attendees (base license) 1,001 to 3,000 attendees (base license) 3,001 to 10,000 attendees (base license) 1,001-20,000 attendees (with attendee packs) 20,001-100,000 attendees (with attendee packs)
Q&A ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅ ✅
Polls ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌
Chat ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌
Raised hands ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌
Live reactions ✅ ✅ ❌ ✅ ❌
Attendee mic ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌
Attendee camera ✅ ❌ ❌ ❌ ❌

Optimize for large audiences

When you optimize an event for large audiences, some features and settings will be configured or limited to support high-scale delivery. Attendee mics and cameras will be turned off. They’ll watch at a slight delay and can pause and rewind the live video.

Events with over 1k capacity will be optimized for scale automatically. Events with 1k capacity can be optimized for scale in your event details.

To optimize an event created in the Teams Events app for scale:

  1. Select Events events app icon on the left side of Teams.

  2. Select Manage.

  3. Select the event you want to optimize for scale.

  4. Select Edit details edit event details icon .

  5. Select Set up experience and options teams-meeting-options-icon .

  6. Turn on the Optimize for large audience toggle.

Some Attendee participation features will be unavailable when this toggle is turned on.

Feature availability

Supported features in events optimized for scale:

  • Polls (up to 20k capacity*)

  • Streaming chat (up to 20k capacity*)

  • Raised hands (up to 20k capacity*)

  • Live reactions (up to 20k capacity*)

  • Q&A (up to 100k capacity*)

  • Ultra Low Latency (ULL)*

Unsupported features in events optimized for scale:

  • Attendee mics/cameras

  • Regular interactive chat (replies, reactions, etc.)

  • Breakout rooms

  • PowerPoint Live

*Contact your IT admin to learn more about feature availability with Teams attendee packs.

Chat at scale

Chat experiences vary depending on event capacity.

For events up to 1k attendees:

  • Attendees can reply, react, attach files, and use formatting options in chat.

  • Organizers can choose to open the event chat before the event starts, during the event only, or turn it off completely.

  • Access to chat history will continue after the event ends unless it's deleted earlier due to admin retention policies.

For events between 1k-20k attendees, or events optimized for scale:

  • Chat is a streaming experience that is only available during the event unless the organizer turns chat off.

  • Attendees can send and view messages but won’t have engagement capabilities (replies, reactions, etc.).

  • Chat history won’t be accessible after the event ends.

Create an event in the Microsoft Teams Events app

Tips for producing large meetings and events in Microsoft Teams