Town hall Q&A checklist: from weeks before to the follow-up

Richard Frantzen, founder of AskTide · Updated 2026-11-04

A town hall Q&A tool is only half the job. The other half is the plan around it: when questions open, who reads them, what appears on screen and what happens to the questions you never got to. This checklist covers public meetings, council sessions and corporate all-hands that are livestreamed.

Short answer: For a livestreamed town hall, choose a Q&A tool that needs no app or account for the audience, open questions in advance, show a QR code in the room and on the stream, decide up front whether questions are anonymous or named, give a dedicated moderator a separate login, and publish answers to unanswered questions within a set number of days afterwards.

What a town hall Q&A tool needs to do

Town halls differ from conference sessions in one important way: the audience includes people who are skeptical, worried or angry, and the meeting may be recorded, published or archived as part of the public record. The tool has to make it easy to ask and easy to moderate.

No app and no account for the audience. Residents and employees should be able to scan a QR code or click a link and type. Every login step loses people.
Pre-moderation. A moderator reads every question before anyone else sees it. This matters more at a town hall than anywhere else.
A clear position on anonymity. Either the tool lets people leave their name out, or your rules require one. Decide which before you choose.
Graphics for the room and the stream. The question being answered should be readable on the room screen and on the livestream, not just read aloud.
One queue for the room and remote viewers, so nobody is second-class. See the hybrid event Q&A guide.

Corporate town halls are often run inside Microsoft Teams or with tools like Vevox, which has a dedicated town hall page (checked November 2026). Those are good fits when everything happens in one meeting platform. AskTide fits when you produce the town hall as a broadcast, with a switcher such as OBS, vMix or TriCaster, and want the questions as on-screen graphics: the outputs are 1920×1080 browser sources with a transparent background. AskTide is free during the beta, the audience needs no app or account, and it has no audience upvoting, so a moderator rather than a vote decides what is asked.

Anonymous town hall questions vs named questions

Anonymous questions get you more honest questions, especially in workplaces where people worry about their manager watching. Named questions get you more accountable ones, and some public bodies require them. Neither is wrong; what is wrong is not deciding.

Whatever you choose, say it on the invitation and on screen: 'Your name is optional and only shown if you write it' or 'Questions need a name to be read out'.

Approach	Works well for	Watch out for	How to run it in AskTide
Fully anonymous	Employee all-hands, sensitive reorganizations	More rudeness; moderator must filter harder	Tell people the name field can be left empty; turn 'show submitter name' off on the graphic
Name optional	Most public meetings and staff town halls	Inconsistent on screen if some have names and some do not	AskTide's audience page has an optional name field; decide whether names appear on screen
Named only	Council public question time where rules require it	Fewer questions; people cannot verify identity online anyway	State the rule up front and only shortlist questions that include a name

If your organization has formal rules, they win. Many municipalities publish guidelines for public question time: Salem municipality in Sweden, for example, accepts questions only in advance by email or at reception at least a week before the meeting, caps the session at 30 minutes and does not accept anonymous questions (Salem guidelines, April 2026). A digital tool does not change those rules; it only makes them easier to follow. Our Swedish guide on allmänhetens frågestund digitalt goes deeper on the municipal case.

Weeks before the town hall

Agree the format and the rules. Length of the Q&A block, which topics are in scope, anonymous or named, how abusive questions are handled, and who has the final say on what is asked. Write it on one page.
Name the roles. Host or chair, at least one moderator, a producer or graphics operator, and someone who owns the follow-up. Read how to moderate a live Q&A for what each role does.
Choose the tool and test it on a real stream. Create a session, add the display output to your switcher and do a short private test stream. Check how a two-line question looks in a lower third on the program output.
Plan how you collect questions in advance. Put the audience link in the invitation, intranet post or meeting agenda so people can send questions before the day. Questions that arrive by email or at reception can be added to the queue manually by the operator.
Draft the run of show. Note where the Q&A sits, who introduces it and when the QR code goes up. The Free Rundown Creator can turn notes into a rundown you can export to DOCX or PDF.

The day before

Read through the questions that arrived in advance. Group duplicates, rewrite long ones for screen and build a first shortlist in Selected.
Brief the speakers on the themes (not necessarily the exact wording) so they are not ambushed, and agree what they will not answer and why.
Create name tags for every speaker so lower thirds are one click away on the day.
Apply your theme so questions, name tags, polls and the QR code share your brand colors and font.
Send the moderator their link and password from the Share menu ('Copy link and password'). The moderator view shows only the questions, nothing else.
Print the QR code for tables or seat backs, or plan to show it on the room screen.

On the day, before doors open

Load the display output (and the flow grid if you use it on a room screen) in the switcher and check they are on the right layers.
Send a test question from a phone on the venue Wi-Fi and from a phone on mobile data. Watch it arrive in New.
Put the test question on air, check it on the room screen and the stream, then move it to Done.
Check talkback or a private chat between moderator and chair.
Put the QR code on screen during the walk-in so early arrivals can start asking.

During the town hall

Announce how to ask in the first minute: QR code on screen, link in the stream description, and whether names are shown.
Show the QR code again just before the Q&A block, full screen or as a lower third.
Moderator empties New continuously, keeps two or three questions in Selected, and flags hard questions to the chair before they go on air.
Do not skip all the critical questions. Audiences notice, and a town hall that only answers easy questions does more harm than one with no Q&A.
Mix questions from the room and from online so remote viewers are not an afterthought.
Move each answered question to Done immediately, and park good questions you will not reach in a custom 'Follow up' column.
Five minutes before the end, the chair says how unanswered questions will be handled. Then do it.

After: answering the questions you did not get to

This is where most town halls lose trust. People who asked and were not answered assume their question was buried. A published follow-up fixes that.

Collect the leftovers right away. Export all questions to Excel from the questions toolbar (the download icon); the file shows which column each question ended up in. Decide beforehand who follows up the unanswered ones and where the answers are published.
Group and assign. Merge duplicates into one question and give each group an owner who writes the answer.
Set a deadline and keep it. Say during the meeting when answers will be published, for example within ten working days, and on which page.
Publish the answers next to the recording. Put the written Q&A on the same page as the recorded stream, so anyone watching later sees both.
Review the rules. Note what went wrong: too few questions, too many off topic, moderator overloaded. Adjust before the next one.

Council meeting public questions online: extra points

Check your procedural rules first: who may ask, whether questions must be submitted in advance, time limits and whether anonymous questions are allowed.
A QR code in the chamber does not replace any formal submission route; it adds one. Make sure the chair knows which questions came in which way.
Livestreamed and archived meetings become public material. Do not put personal details, cases or names of third parties on screen.
Keep the moderator role with an official who knows the rules, not with the stream technician.

All-hands Q&A moderation: extra points

If employees fear for their position, make anonymity the default and say so clearly.
Leadership should see the shortlist, not the raw queue, during the meeting; the moderator's job is to keep the hard questions in, not take them out.
Run a short poll at the start ('What topic should we cover first?') to warm up the audience page before the Q&A.
For distributed teams, invite colleagues to an AskTide team so several producers can open and run the same session.

Frequently asked questions

What is the best tool for town hall Q&A?

It depends on how you produce the meeting. If it runs inside Teams, the built-in Q&A or a tool like Vevox fits. If you produce it as a livestream with OBS, vMix or TriCaster and want questions as on-screen graphics, a broadcast-oriented tool such as AskTide fits better.

Should town hall questions be anonymous?

Anonymous questions are usually more honest; named questions are more accountable. For employee all-hands anonymity is often the right default, while some councils require names. Decide in advance and tell the audience.

Can people ask questions without an account or app?

Yes, with AskTide. Viewers scan a QR code or open the audience link and type; the name field is optional and no app or account is needed.

How do I collect questions before a town hall?

Share the audience link in the invitation or agenda so questions arrive before the day, and add questions that come in by email or at reception to the queue manually. Review and shortlist them the day before.

What should we do with questions we didn't answer?

Copy them out right after the meeting, group duplicates, assign an owner to each, and publish written answers next to the recording by a deadline you announced during the meeting.

Is AskTide free for town halls?

Yes. AskTide is free during the beta, with unlimited sessions and all features, and no credit card. The organizer needs a free account; the audience does not.