Important: Licencing laws for small gigs

[OldGit]

Lord Clement-Jones Private Members Bill to liberalise the Licensing Regime will have its First Reading in the House of Lords on January 15th.

Coincidentally (!) the Department of Culture, Media, and Sport have launched a Public Consultation on plans to slightly relax Licensing for small gigs.

Details are at [url="http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_library/consultations/6499.aspx"]http://www.culture.gov.uk/reference_librar...tions/6499.aspx[/url]
You have until 26th March to respond.

If you feel like making a submission yourself (and you should if you ever play gigs for Schools, Churches, fundraisers, etc) the more the merrier!
For example you might want to lobby for the restriction on modest amplification to be removed.
If you play in Village & Community halls you might want to remind DCMS that £21 for a Temporary Event Notice is far too expensive when you are fund raising in the present economic climate!

Etc.
Lets get our voices heard before small gigs get legislated to death.

Thanks

[skankdelvar]

This should be a sticky. Nice one, Herr Git.

I'm off to shout at some pencil-necked policy wonks.

[OldGit]

They are talking about having an excemption for gigs below 100 people but most village halls and chuch halls that we play have a fire limit of about 150 so I've suggested this might be a more realistic threshold. That last 30 tickets can make the difference between a band gig or a disco ...