Town Hall meetings form personal connections and those connections lead to bonds between audience members and meeting leaders. The more people that attend these meetings, the more connections and bonds that are formed. This makes the value of holding a series of meetings on a regular schedule or throughout a wide area extremely valuable. With planning and a team of experienced event managers your Town Hall Meeting can go from one meeting room at one location to a company-wide, statewide, or nationwide audience.
The three most common series types are:
Town Hall Series Types
- Quick Succession - Campaign Meetings
- Regular business or political meetings
- Ad Hoc, issue based meetings
Quick Succession Town Hall Meetings
These meetings generally are short in duration and focus on very specific issues or messages. They may be conducted multiple times per day in the same location or in several cities. Generally an advance team of technicians and event coordinators set up and take down the event equipment so that the meeting leader or candidate can move quickly between venues.
Regular Town Hall Meetings
These meetings are generally held repeatedly in the same location. This allows meeting leaders and support staff members to develop agendas and routines that keep a meeting well organized and effective. Examples of regular Town Hall Meeting types are:
- City Council Monthly Public Meetings
- Quarterly Business Report to Employees
- Annual State of the City/ State/ County Meetings
Frequently these meetings are presented to a community of audience members in multiple formats. In addition to the live meeting forum itself, these formats may include live video streaming online during the event, telephone access to the event, and online event viewing through Video On Demand services.
Regular Town Hall Meetings focus over time on access for a wide audience. This access often includes special attention to those with disabilities.
Ad Hoc Issue Based Town Hall Meetings
Key community activities, business restructuring and organized responses to regional disasters are examples of events that often call for Town Hall style meetings.
The objective of Ad Hoc Town Hall Meetings is to create a forum to provide critical, often time sensitive, information in a meeting session that provides an opportunity for audience members to ask questions that pertain to their own circumstances.
News media is often invited to attend Ad Hoc meetings and so planning for their participation is critical in disseminating information. Often, for example, News teams will bring cameras to record video for their newscasts, but they will expect a high quality audio "feed" from the event organization or planning staff. Knowing this and other key factors in advance can avoid a last minute scramble in the minutes just prior to the meeting itself.
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