The Stage

Artists to be given week to rethink up-front fees

Published Tuesday 27 November 2007 at 13:30 by Matthew Hemley

Talent agencies will be banned from demanding up-front fees on the day of a casting session under new legislation that will see aspiring performers given a week-long cooling-off period in which to consider their options.

The legislation, which will be debated in parliament in the next couple of weeks and is planned to come into force in April next year, aims to crack down on bogus agencies and protect vulnerable people from feeling pressured into parting with money before they have had time to think about the service they are being offered.

Under the proposed legislation, an agency will be required to tell the applicant what their charges are when an initial audition or casting session is held, but will not be allowed to take any money.

A cooling-off period of a week will then have to be provided and a fee can only be requested by the agency once that time has elapsed. If a fee is taken before the week is up, the agency in question will have broken the law.

The new legislation has been put forward in response to a consultation carried out earlier this year by the Department for Trade and Industry, which has since been renamed as the Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform.

A spokeswoman for the DBERR said: “Providing a cooling-off period will increase protection for those caught up in the atmosphere of a casting session, who are often young people, inexperienced in dealing with hard-sell situations.”

She said the law could also make the practice of “mass casting sessions rather less attractive to the unscrupulous agencies”.

However, campaigners who have fought for a complete ban on up-front fees claim the legislation does not go far enough. They argue that a week is not long enough for people to realise they have been conned by rogue agents and also claim that the legislation will simply see agents requesting a post-dated cheque that can be banked as soon as the seven days are up.

Bectu national official Spencer MacDonald said: “We are deeply disappointed because we have been hammering away at the Department of Trade and Industry for a number of years and we thought they were slowly coming around and understanding the problems being experienced by our members. They have not come up with the goods really - they have not delivered anywhere near what we wanted.”

Equity walk on councillor Clive Hurst, who has been at the forefront of the campaign for an outright ban, said he was “absolutely livid” and repeated his calls for up-front fees to be banned completely. He added: “The agents who won’t survive if up-front fees are banned are those agencies who don’t find people work.”

Equity and Bectu are now working together to decide a course of action in response to the new legislation.