Subject: Live music/license
petition
Please circulate
Over 11,400 people have signed the live
music/licensing petition on the Number 10 website. At the time of
writing it stands at number 8 in the list of nearly 3,000 petitions
and is likely to climb higher today:
http://petitions.pm.gov.uk/licensing/
In the next few weeks, the Live Music Forum will
present its recommendations for improvement of the Licensing Act to
ministers.
Please consider signing the petition if you haven't
already done so. If you have signed, encourage friends to sign. Points
to remember about the new law:
• For the first time, private performances raising money
for charity are illegal unless licensed.
• School performances open to friends and family are
licensable - they count as public performances.
• The unlicensed provision of even one musician is a
potential criminal offence - although some places are exempt, including
places of public religious worship, royal palaces and moving vehicles.
Max penalty: £20,000 fine and six months in prison.
• The rationale is to prevent noise, crime
and disorder, to ensure public safety, and the protection of
children from harm.
• But broadcast entertainment, including sport and music,
is exempt no matter where, and no matter how powerfully amplified.
• In the transition to the new regime in 2005, bars with
jukeboxes, CD players etc were automatically granted a licence to
play recorded music; but their automatic entitlement to one or two
live musicians was abolished.
• Under the old regime all premises licensed to sell
alcohol for consumption on the premises were automatically allowed up to two
live musicians (the 'two in a bar rule').
• Last December, DCMS published research
confirming that about 40% of these have lost any automatic
entitlement to live music as a result of the new Act:
'Very few establishments that wanted a new licence
were denied it, and many who were previously limited to 2-in-a-bar now have
the ability to stage music with 2 or more musicians... This contrasts, of
course, with the fact that 40% of establishments now have no automatic means
of putting on live music (i.e. they would have to give a
TEN).'
['Licensing Act 2003, The experience of smaller establishments
in applying for live music authorisation', December 2006', paragraphs 6.1.1
and 6.1.2 'Conclusions', p54; Caroline Callahan, Andy Martin, Anna Pierce,
Ipsos-MORI]
'TEN' stands for Temporary Event Notice - in effect
a temporary entertainment licence. Only 12 are allowed per premises per year.
They cost £21 each. See the full MORI reports on this
site:
http://www.culture.gov.uk/Reference_library/Research/research_by_dcms/live_music_exec_summary.htm
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