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Friday , March , 29 2024
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Advice on Staging a Temporary Event.


If you are staging a small event where less than 500 people are likely to attend, you may need to apply for a Temporary Event Notice.

This notice will be essential if your event is providing licensable activities i.e. regulated entertainment, sale of alcohol, or hot food or drink for sale (between 23:00 and 05:00 often referred to as ‘late night refreshment’). Please refer to our Guidance notes (GD03) that explains ‘regulated entertainment’

Someone who holds a personal licence will be able to hold up to 50 temporary events a year at premises that are not licensed. Non-personal licence holders will be able to hold up to 5 temporary events a year. A Temporary Event Notice must be given to the council at least 10 clear working days before an event of this sort can be held, and the police and Environmental Health may object to it under the four licensing objectives.

The legislation now allows a limited number of 'late' notices to be served giving between 5 and 9 clear days notice. A personal licence holder may serve up to 10 late notices and a non-personal licence holder up to 2.

The legislation does not allow any discretion to accept the notice with less than 5 clear working days notice.

Individual premises may only hold 15 temporary events per year and the total number of days must be no more than 21.

  Temporary Events FAQ

Temporary Event Notices

Temporary Event Notices can be used for small scale or one off events. If you are planning an event where there will be licensable activities, i.e. regulated entertainment, sale of alcohol, or hot food or drink for sale (between 23:00 and 05:00), you probably need to submit a Temporary Event Notice (TEN).

A TEN can be used instead of a premises licence for events involving the following licensable activities:

  • Plays or films
  • Indoor sporting events, boxing, wrestling
  • Live/recorded music
  • Performance of dance
  • Sale/supply of alcohol
  • Provision of late night refreshment (hot food and drink between 23:00-05:00)
  • entertainment of a similar description to a performance of live music, any playing of recorded music or a performance of dance

(Please refer to our guidance notes to determine what activities have been’ de-regulated’ under the Live Music Act 2012)

TENs can also be used to authorise an event outside of the terms of an existing premises licence or to provide authority for an event where there is no existing premises licence. 

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