The Stage

Small venues may get licensing exemption to boost live music

Published Wednesday 19 December 2007 at 14:35 by Lalayn Baluch

A new licensing exemption to help small venues such as restaurants and community halls to stage live music is being considered by the Department for Culture, Media and Sport, after it was revealed that live performances at such sites has dropped since the introduction of the new Licensing Act.

The government also plans to spend £500,000 over the next two years to set up community rehearsal spaces for young people, work with the Mayor of London to protect musical venues in the capital, and help universities host musical performances.

The proposed measures follow the news that live music provision in the UK had fallen by 5%, according to a new survey that was designed to establish the effects of the Licensing Act 2003 on “secondary live music venues”. The research - undertaken by the British Market Research Bureau on behalf of the DCMS - compared numbers against an initial study undertaken in 2004.

Findings revealed that live music provision in church halls and community centres had dropped by 24% over the last three years, had decreased by 12% in restaurants and cafes, and fallen by 7% in both members clubs and student unions.

Culture secretary James Purnell said: “The live music industry is clearly booming, but there hasn’t yet been the increase in live music in small venues such as restaurants that we had hoped for. I want to do everything we can to support live music. To help ensure that, we will explore exemptions for some venues. Clearly we’d only be looking at exemptions for events that don’t cause public nuisance or compromise public safety.”

According to the BMRB survey, only 10% of venues blamed the licensing regime on the fall in live music provision, while 21% said it was due to lack of demand and 19% said that it was because it is not profitable to stage live events.

However, live music campaigner Hamish Burchill has highlighted the fact that the survey does not attempt to establish if interviewees were working at the venues before the act was implemented, and would therefore not be in a position to provide a fair comment. He explained: “More than half or more of the interviewees knew little or nothing about the legislation. That high proportion are included in all the answers about the impact of the licensing act, but they are not qualified to judge - if you don’t know how the legislation works, you cannot assess the impact of it.”

Meanwhile, Lord Tim Clement Jones, Liberal Democrat DCMS spokesperson in the House of Lords, said that the survey shows the Licensing Act has failed to deliver the “explosion” in live music promised by the government, but Musicians’ Union general secretary John Smith welcomed the government’s recognition of the “disappointing decrease in live music in small venues” and said it would work with the DCMS to “remedy the situation”.