Preliminary thoughts on answers to the Licensing Exemption consultation documents.
Please send your comments for inclusion to
Beau_at_KentFolk_dot_com
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Question 1: Do you agree that the exemption should be limited to performances held wholly inside a permanent building? Yes/No. If No, please explain why.
Pro :
a) This will drastically reduce the surrounding noise.
b) The venue/gig organiser should be able to control the number of attendees.
Con :
a) This will criminalise say three acoustic players on the village green during a fête.
Query :
Will the definition of what is an enclosed premise be the same as for smoking, or will there be two different definitions ?
Question 2: Do you agree that the exemption should be limited to performances of live music for not more than 100 people? Yes/No. If No, please explain why.
Pro :
Keeping the numbers small will help placate those worried about the noise of those leaving the premise.
100 is a reasonable figure for a typical pub gig.
Con :
100 is a low number for say an event in a village hall - although audience numbers have recently dropped, a more common historical audience number for folk event in Kent is around 120;
In the folk world typically half the audience turn up on the door with no ticket
- A figure of 200 would ensure that for most folk gigs the organiser did not have to turn people away on the door.
Query :
How about a compromise figure of 150, which is typical for the upper-end seating capacity of most village halls ?
Can you send me the seating capacity of your village hall ?
Does your village hall have a premise license ?
OK, don't bother re those two questions, I have found what I need on the web.
Here is a bar-chart based on a list of village and community hall capacities (non-exhaustive, and not showing conurbation halls in the 200 to 500 capacity range), in the Canterbury District, Kent. Where a village hall has 2 rooms, I have presented them separately and summed, as they are often used.
Immediately we see that a cut-off of 100 for the exempt size of audience is right on a peak of the village hall distribution, potentially leading to an arbitrariness in the treatment of very similar halls. Clearly an exempt size limit of 150 is far more appropriate where village halls are concerned.
Question 3: Do you agree that audiences for exempt performances should be accommodated entirely within the building where the performance is taking place? Yes/No. If No, please explain why.
Pro :
a) This will drastically reduce the surrounding noise.
b) The venue/gig organiser should be able to control the number of attendees.
Con :
Query :
What about those that "pop out for a smoke" (or to cool off from dancing) - are they considered not to be part of the audience whilst they are outside ?
Question 4: Do you agree that exempt performances should not take place between 11pm and 8am? Yes/No. If No, please explain why.
Pro :
Keeping to these times will help placate those worried about the noise of those leaving the premise.
Con :
Historically most folk gigs "end" at 11pm with an encore or two taking about another 10 minutes.
Query :
Would a 10 minute over-run for encores as per the old "drinking-up time" be acceptable ?
Questions 5 to 13:
All Yes so far.