The Stage

Licensing fee threat to open-air shows

Published Thursday 27 January 2005 at 10:30 by Ruth Gillespie

Organisers of outdoor concerts, theatre performances and festivals will be forced to pay an additional charge of up to £64,000 to stage large-scale events under a new fee structure introduced by the government as part of the 2003 Licensing Act.

Under the new system, which the Department for Culture, Media and Sport brought before Parliament last week, events attracting audiences of 5,000 people or more will be required to make a one-off payment of between £1,000 and £64,000 on top of their public entertainment licence, which will cost between £100 and £635.

While organisers of large commercial programmes will be able to incorporate the extra costs into the price of their tickets, industry figures have warned that large-scale community and not for profit events will no longer be able to function when the additional charge is incorporated into their budgets.

Bill Gee, co-ordinator of the Independent Street Arts Network, said: “Most of the events we represent are free for the audience and are run either by charitable organisations or local authorities. They are working with professional performers but the idea is to draw people tog-ether in a community environment that is not fuelled by the sale of alcohol.

“I would imagine the DCMS is thinking more about the bigger commercial operations but this will be yet another financial burden that festival and street arts organisers will have to consider when planning such events and, inevitably, it will lead to the number of these wonderful events diminishing over the coming years.”

The additional fee will be proportional to the number of people attending but, as many festivals are ticketless, organisers fear they will be forced to over-estimate the size of their potential audience in order to comply with licensing classifications and could end up paying thousands of pounds unnecessarily if people do not turn up.

Arts Council England is joining with the ISAN, Equity and the Circus Arts Forum, which has strongly objected to a clause in the Licensing Act that will force travelling companies to apply for a special 12-month public entertainment permit for every venue they intend to visit, in lobbying the government over the controversial law.

Head of public affairs for ACE Kelly Wiffen said: “The government is trying to establish what it feels is an appropriate cost for those licences throughout England and Wales. However, we first found out about the additional fee for exceptionally large-scale events in the consultation document published by the DCMS in November. Like many parties we let them know that the extra charge would be an issue for the festival and street art sector. We are disappointed that rather than taking that concern into account, the fees have been introduced unchanged.”