Pop promoters face tough new rules if they want to get concert licences

Licences to hold pop concerts and other open-air events may be as difficult to secure as the planning permission system which they replace.

The changes announced by the Minister for the Environment, Mr Dempsey, last week mean a concert promoter no longer has to apply for planning permission to hold a pop concert in a venue such as Slane Castle, Co Meath.

And the new licensing arrangement will no longer involve the inevitable appeal to An Bord Pleanala - or any appeal at all.

Now, promoters must apply to local authorities for a licence in a new format - but the conditions they must fulfill are in some ways more stringent than planning permission. The promoters must satisfy the local authorities that they have sufficiently comprehensive plans to handle the cleansing arrangements, crowd control, traffic movements, as well as an overall health and safety plan.

In the past, many of these elements were left up to the relevant state agencies to handle after planning permission had been granted. Now, however, the promoter must have these plans in place and must involve the state agencies as well as carrying the cost.

The new regulations stipulate that the public must be consulted: there is a statutory public consultation period of four weeks in which the completed plan, detailing all arrangements with community and State agencies, must go on display.

The effect is to give local authorities significantly more power over whether concerts may be held. But difficulty has been expressed over "spontaneous" events, such as the conferring of the freedom of the city on a homecoming sporting champion.

As members of the Oireachtas Committee on the Environment pointed out, when an athlete comes home in triumph, there is little chance of slapping in a licensing application to Fingal County Council for a licence to hold an open-air event at Dublin airport.

Concern has been expressed too at the cost of each application. The £2,000 the licence costs is a lot for not-for-profit groups to raise.

In the past, much of this was left up to the relevant state agencies with the result, as the Minister put it, that people became "virtual prisoners" in their own homes.

So bad was this that Fianna Fail Deputy John Brady, who represents Slane, wondered if there should be a minimum one year application period for a licence to hold an open-air concert.

However, the Minister had to facilitate concert promoters too and a year's notice was deemed to be unpractical. The new moves also allow for a little local common sense which the planning laws did not previously facilitate.

According to Minister Dempsey, the concerts will be better organised for being taken out of the planning process. Local authorities, he says will be in a better position to achieve this through individual licensing. "This in turn will give greater confidence to those living in the vicinity of such events that they will be properly managed", he said.

The regulations will permit licences to be granted for a particular venue to hold a number of events during the year. This measure may allow concert promoters to plan their events with more certainty.