What is a Townhall Meeting?

A town hall is a forum in which leaders can share context, decision-making thought processes, and relevant environmental factors to a wider audience. It’s also an opportunity for an audience to provide feedback and pose questions. A town hall is most effective when leaders genuinely seek to share objective information and hear authentic feedback. 

What does a town hall meeting look like in practice? Typically, these convenings are opportunities for leaders of an institution to give a report out on the state of things at the institution (hence why at Vimeo we call them the State of the Vimeo) and to speak to some of the most important topics that audience members (employees) care about. 

 A “Town Hall” by tradition assumes a two-way dialogue, which may not always be the case for a variety of reasons (i.e. time limitations, the amount of content to cover, sensitivity issues, audience relevance, etc.).

What is another word for town hall meeting?

Town hall meetings are often called all staff meetings, all hands meetings, and all hands on deck meetings. Some companies have internal names for these meets too. For example, Splash, an event marketing platform, refers to their town hall meetings as ‘town calls.’