It appears to me that the call was open to the public.
Government agencies in many cases do not have or use more sophisticated ways to handle much more than face to face meetings.
First, you set expectations with the public from the start. Explain how the call will go and what participants can and can not do.
You can NOT allow all participants to have access to the mic at any time period. People in general, are too stupid to understand and respect that a conference call like this one is meant for informational purposes or to be an open discussion among principals and representatives.
If the public wants (and the should be allowed) to contribute their feedback or have questions, they need to digitally raise their hand and a list of the requests in proper order gets populated on the screen for everyone to see. The questions should only be related to the subject in hand at that instance.
You need a moderator who limits the time of a question and answers who can mute a caller who exceeds his time. Written questions can be submitted during the call for everyone to see to avoid asking the same question more than once, and they can be addressed during the call time permitting.
I have participated in many conference calls with a high number of attendees and I have never seen such a poorly handle process.
I will do it for $10,000
