Microsoft is updating Teams Premium licensing to reflect the capabilities announced for Teams Events in January. Microsoft previously announced a similar change to Teams Premium licensing for Microsoft Places.
This change is relevant for organizations that regularly host events with more than 3,000 interactive attendees.
Currently, Teams Premium supports up to 100,000 interactive attendees per event. This limit will be reduced, and organizations will need to purchase capacity packs for larger events. On the plus side, all users with a Teams Enterprise license will soon be able to host events with up to 3,000 interactive or 10,000 non-interactive attendees.
Timeline
- Starting 1 April 2026, users without a Teams Premium license can host events with up to 3,000 interactive attendees or 10,000 in view-only mode. A Teams Enterprise license is required.
- For organizations with a Teams Premium license, the 3,000 interactive attendee limit takes effect at the end of the current subscription term or at renewal. A Teams Enterprise license is required after the Teams Premium license is renewed.
How does this affect your organisation?
Microsoft has documented its current event capacity limits here.
At least the figure for Premium Town Hall events is outdated, the actual limit is 100,000 attendees.
These limits will change starting 1 April 2026 for users with a Teams Enterprise license.
- Advanced Teams event features, previously available only with Teams Premium, are included with Teams Enterprise.
With this license, users can organize and run events with up to 3,000 interactive attendees and gain access to capabilities such as streaming chat, interactive reactions, real-time insights, theme and email customization, eCDN, immersive events, and additional organizer and attendee enhancements. - Events also support up to 10,000 attendees in view-only mode. These attendees can watch the event live and participate in Q&A, but cannot use interactive features such as reactions, chat, raise hand, or polls.
- All users with a Teams Enterprise license will have access to the eCDN view-only experience (with Q&A) for up to 10,000 attendees.
- The Teams Premium capacity will be removed for new licenses. Microsoft will introduce capacity packs in sizes of 5k, 10k, 25k, 35k, 50k, 75k, and 100k attendees. Capacity packs are required for events with more than 3,000 interactive attendees.
- This change is also related to the upcoming new Teams Events experience, scheduled to roll out over the next few weeks.
- Teams Premium continues to offer advanced value, including advanced communication features, meeting protection, advanced collaboration tools for admins, intelligent recap, the Queues app for Teams Phone, and enhanced Bookings and virtual appointment capabilities.
How does this affect event organizers?
Starting 1 April, all users with a Teams Enterprise license can host an event with up to 3,000 interactive or 10,000 view-only attendees.
Organizations can assign one of the capacity packs to an organizer account to schedule events with a larger interactive audience. The capacity pack defines the maximum event capacity. An account can hold a maximum of one capacity pack. Assigning multiple packs to a single account does not increase the total capacity.
If the organizer still holds a Teams Premium license under the previous terms, that account can host events for up to 100,000 interactive attendees until the license is renewed. A new capacity pack is not required for such accounts.
The organizer must decide at the time of initial event scheduling whether the event will be interactive (3,000 included by default, with additional capacity via capacity packs) or view-only (up to 10,000 attendees). Only the organizer needs the capacity pack, co-organizers and presenters do not. Switching between interactive and view-only events is not possible after the event has been created. The organizer must create a new event instead.
I recommend reading the Teams Premium licensing FAQ document, which provides additional details.
