A great deal of what people assume needs a licence does not. Live and recorded music to audiences of 500 or fewer, between 8am and 11pm, is not licensable in most venues. Plays and dance are the same; indoor sport goes to 1,000. Where you do need authorisation, a Temporary Event Notice covers up to 499 people — but only 15 times a year per premises, across a maximum of 21 days. Those numbers decide whether a building can carry your programme.
Live and recorded music to 500 or fewer between 8am and 11pm is exempt in most venue types. Plays and dance the same; indoor sport to 1,000. Unamplified live music in those hours is exempt at any audience size. A great many event organisers apply for authorisation they do not need.
Hours, licensable activities, capacity, door supervision and conditions on doors, windows and dispersal. The licence, not the venue’s brochure, decides what your event can be. We read it and tell you where your programme falls outside it.
A TEN covers up to 499 people, but only 15 per premises per calendar year and across a maximum of 21 days. A venue that has used twelve by August cannot carry a busy autumn, and nobody volunteers that number unless you ask.
Our fee is paid by the venue owner or the landlord. No fee to you and no booking commission — and no reason to put you in a building whose licence will not carry what you are running.
Format, expected attendance, hours, whether there is amplified music, whether alcohol is sold or supplied, and how often you intend to run. Those five answers decide which venues are legally possible before any of them are viewed.
What the premises licence covers and its conditions, TENs already used this year, capacity by layout and by fire certificate, noise history and any abatement notice, and access and egress for your numbers.
Where a TEN or a variation is needed, the timetable matters: a standard TEN needs 10 clear working days and a late one 5. Where a permanent change is needed, that is a licence variation with its own process. We build both into the plan.
Successive deregulation removed large parts of what used to require a licence. Between 8am and 11pm: unamplified live music is exempt regardless of audience size; amplified live music and recorded music are exempt for audiences of 500 or fewer; plays and dance performances are exempt to 500; and indoor sporting events are exempt to 1,000.
The music exemptions are not universal — they apply at premises licensed for alcohol, at workplaces, at community halls not licensed for alcohol, and at local authority, school and hospital premises with consent. But between them they cover the overwhelming majority of small and mid-sized events, and a great many organisers apply for authorisation they do not actually need.
A Temporary Event Notice authorises licensable activities at a place without a premises licence, or beyond what an existing licence permits. The limits are firm. Attendance is capped at 499 including staff at any one time. An event can run up to 168 hours. There must be at least 24 hours between separate notices.
The annual limits are where plans fail. Only 15 TENs per premises per calendar year, across a maximum of 21 days in total. A personal licence holder may give up to 50 standard notices a year and 10 late ones; anyone else may give 5 standard and 2 late. Notice periods are 10 clear working days for a standard TEN and 5 for a late one, and a late TEN can be objected to with less room to negotiate.
Venues quote a capacity figure that usually describes the most optimistic layout. The numbers that actually govern you are different: the fire risk assessment occupancy figure, any capacity condition on the premises licence, and the practical capacity given egress routes, toilet provision and the layout you actually need. Ask for all three separately and ask which layout each assumes.
A premises licence sets your permitted hours, but it is not a defence to a noise complaint. Environmental health can serve an abatement notice for statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 regardless of what your licence permits, and that can restrict hours or require works. Breach of an abatement notice is a criminal offence.
So on any venue with residential nearby, the complaint history is a better guide to your realistic trading pattern than the licence is. Ask environmental health, not the vendor. Then look at the practical controls: acoustic separation and lobbying at entrances, a noise limiter and where it is set, whether the licence conditions doors and windows to be kept closed after a certain hour, and what the dispersal policy requires of you at the end of the night.
Hot food after 11pm is late night refreshment and licensable in its own right, with or without alcohol — so catering that runs past midnight is a licensing question, not a catering one. Door supervision, where the licence requires it, must be by SIA-licensed staff. Pavement or outdoor areas may need their own permissions. And where a civil ceremony is involved, the venue needs to be approved premises, which is a separate regime again with its own application and objection period.
On rates, event and function venues fall on the retail, hospitality and leisure multipliers from April 2026 — 38.2p below £51,000 rateable value and 43.0p to £499,999. On a specialist venue the assessment may be arrived at from receipts rather than comparable rents, which means a strong trading year can feed through into a higher rateable value at the next revaluation.
Often not. Between 8am and 11pm, unamplified live music is exempt at any audience size, and amplified live and recorded music are exempt for audiences of 500 or fewer — at alcohol-licensed premises, workplaces, community halls not licensed for alcohol, and local authority, school and hospital premises with consent. Plays and dance are exempt to 500 and indoor sport to 1,000. Two things bring you back in: selling or supplying alcohol, which is licensable at any hour and size, and running past 11pm, because the exemptions stop there.
Fifteen per premises per calendar year, across a maximum of 21 days in total. Each TEN covers up to 499 people including staff, can run up to 168 hours, and needs at least 24 hours between separate notices. Separately, a personal licence holder can give up to 50 standard notices a year and 10 late ones, while anyone else is limited to 5 standard and 2 late. If you are hiring a venue, ask how many it has already used this year — a venue that has used its fifteen cannot host you under a TEN however available the date looks.
Ten clear working days for a standard Temporary Event Notice, or five for a late TEN. The distinction matters beyond the timing: a late TEN gives the police and environmental health less room to negotiate conditions, so an objection is more likely to stop the event outright rather than result in an agreed compromise. Plan on the standard route and treat the late one as a fallback rather than a strategy, particularly at a venue with any history of complaints.
Not the one in the brochure. Three numbers matter now: the occupancy figure in the fire risk assessment, any capacity condition on the premises licence, and the practical capacity given egress, toilets and your actual layout. From spring 2027 a fourth arrives — Martyn's Law, with a standard tier from 200 individuals reasonably expected present and an enhanced tier from 800, counting staff, contractors and crew alongside guests. A 180-guest event with 25 staff and a band is already past the standard threshold.
They can make them very difficult, and not only through the licensing process. Environmental health can serve an abatement notice for statutory nuisance under the Environmental Protection Act 1990 regardless of what your premises licence permits, and breaching one is a criminal offence. A licence allowing music until midnight is not a defence to a noise complaint. On any venue with residential nearby, ask environmental health about the complaint history rather than asking the vendor — it tells you more about your realistic trading pattern than the licence does.
