Temporary Event Notices

[globalloon]

here are some basic guidance notes to help you fill in a Temporary Event Notice (TENs) if you choose to go down this route for any party you are throwing

the TENs has been designed as a 'soft-touch' license for small, one off events. Applying for one means that if things go badly wrong, the authorities will have your name. If your party is well organised, you shouldn't have anything to worry about and your party can't be stopped by the cops unless you are breaking the conditions in the TENs

Temporary Event Notice Application Form*
(this may vary in your district / ward)


Application for a temporary event notice licence to be granted
under the Licensing Act 2003


CHECKLIST

Send two copies of this notice to the licensing authority for the area in which the premises are located

Send a copy of this notice to the chief officer of police for the area in which the premises are located

Send two copies of this notice to each additional licensing authority

If the premises are situated in one or more police areas, send a copy of this notice to each additional chief officer of police

Make or enclose payment of the fee of £21 for the application

Sign the declaration in Section 9

ok so far?

Temporary Event Notice

Information on the Licensing Act 2003 is available on the website of the Department for Culture, Media and Sport (http://www.culture.gov.uk/alcohol_an...nt/default.htm) or from your local licensing authority.

Before completing this notice please read the guidance notes at the end of the notice. If you are completing this notice by hand please write legibly in block capitals. In all cases ensure that your answers are inside the boxes and written or typed in black ink. Use additional sheets if necessary.

You should keep a copy of the completed notice for your records. You must send two copies of this notice to the licensing authority and an additional copy must be sent to the chief officer of police for the area in which the premises are situated. The licensing authority will endorse one of the two copies and return it to you as an acknowledgement of receipt.

ok so far?

I, the proposed premises user, hereby give notice under section 100 of the Licensing Act 2003 of my proposal to carry on a temporary activity at the premises described below.

this is where you grit your teeth and commit to saying that you are confident that your party is well organised enough and that you and your crew (although ultimately, just you) are capable of remaining in control of the event

Part 1 - The personal details of premises user (Please read note 1)


Title

Surname

Forenames

PREVIOUS NAMES (Please enter details of any previous names or maiden names, if applicable. Please continue on a separate sheet if necessary)


Title
Surname
Forenames

Your date of birth

Your place of birth

National Insurance Number

YOUR CURRENT ADDRESS (We will use this address to correspond with you unless you complete the separate correspondence box below)

TELEPHONE NUMBERS

E-Mail Address (optional)

we know where you live!

Part 2 - The premises

Please give the address of the premises where you intend to carry on the licensable activities or if it has no address give a detailed description (including the Ordnance Survey references) - (Please read note 2)

for those to lazy to search, note 2 says

"For the purposes of the Licensing Act 2003, “premises” means any place. Premises will therefore not always be a building with a formal address and postcode. Premises can include, for example, public parks, recreation grounds and private land".

so we're talking the exact location, nature and description of a piece of private land. get your self an Ordanance Survey map (from the local library?) and make sure you aren't pointing that 10K hooner at a farmhouse, retirement home, or at the home of a senior policeman, of course!

If you intend to use only part of the premises at this address or intend to restrict the area to which this notice applies, please give a description and details below. (Please read note 3)

this is up to you to describe. Any natural boundary is helpful. Just don't be trampling in the neighbouring farmers fields looking for a quiet place to have a poo. how will you ensure this?

Please describe the nature of the premises below. (Please read note 4)

ie. a field, a barn etc.

pubs, social clubs, village halls can also apply

Note 4 says: A description of the nature of the premises assists the chief officer of police in deciding if any crime prevention issues are likely to arise. You should state clearly that the premises to be used are, for example, a public house, a restaurant, an open field, a village hall or a beer tent.

so, WHATEVER THE LOCATION, what measures do you have in place to allow emergency vehicle access? (in one instance we put up signs in narrow areas of the lane saying "no parking, emergency vehicle access only. We also sent sober stewards up the lane to check and occassionally stopped the music to bollock people who had ignored the signs, making sure they rectified the problem before the volume went up again... took 5 minutes)

Please describe the nature of the event below. (Please read note 5)

putting "AN ILLEGAL RAVE" won't help you one iota.

Note 5 says: A description of the nature of the event similarly assists the chief officer of police in making his decision whether or not to make an objection. You should state clearly that the event taking place at the premises would be, for example, a wedding with a pay bar, the supply of beer at a particular farmers’ market,

try "recorded music and dancing at private birthday celebration" or whatever is relevant to your party (leaving party, wedding party, beltane etc)

Part 3 - The licensable activities

Please state the licensable activities that you intend to carry on at the premises (please mark an “X” next to the licensable activities you intend to carry on). (Please read note 6)
The sale by retail of alcohol
The supply of alcohol by or on behalf of a club to, or to the order of, a member of the club
The provision of regulated entertainment
The provision of late night refreshment
Please state the dates on which you intend to use these premises for licensable activities. (Please read note 7)

this should be straight forward

i haven't gone for a bar yet, but if you know a friendly publican or off license, there is scope to sell alcohol. we've only taken the hot food and drinks route thus far, but knock yourself out and come and tell us all how it went, bar-side

Please state the times during the event period that you propose to carry on licensable activities (please give times in 24 hour clock). (Please read note 8)

you have 96 hours

I would recommend planning for setting up, testing out your equipment, the main event as well as packing up time.

you have 96 hours!

Please state the maximum number of people at any one time that you intend to allow to be present at the premises during the times when you intend to carry on licensable activities, including any staff, organisers or performers. (Please read note 9)

don't know why they ask this, as the maximum is 499 (inc staff, performers and every other mutha etc)

you should have at least 1 steward to every 100 people at any one time. at least some of these should be trained in fire safety, first aid, security etc.

If the licensable activities will include the supply of alcohol, please state ....

check your local form for more detail.. they are available free!

but you can sell / supply beer if you want to...

now you've completed your form, you want to check that it's accurate, because the declartion you will need to sign at the end goes like this

I understand that it is an offence:
(i) to knowingly or recklessly make a false statement in connection with this temporary event notice and that a person is liable on conviction for such an offence to a fine up to level 5 on the standard scale; and
(ii) to permit an unauthorised licensable activity to be carried on at any place and that a person is liable on conviction for any such offence to a fine not exceeding £20,000, or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months, or to both

good luck and enjoy the party!

[General Lighting]

good advice; a bit of info about specifying the location..

OS maps in libraries are sometimes out of date (libraries budgets have been slashed drastically) - but you can buy the more detailed OS maps or plans (a map with scale below 1:6000 is sometimes called a plan) from a "TSO bookshop" (one which sells Government books and papers); they are also sold on-line

Bear in mind that although GPS (satnav) equipment can also generate grid references; due to the different mapping models used there can be positional errors of up to 100 feet. This can make quite a difference when you are specifiying boundaries of places!

If you were not taught this in school or have since forgotten, this article shows how to obtain a grid reference.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British...ference_system

[Raj]

a very important part of the process is dealing with Health and Safety requirements for the event mostly these are common sense measures

this is called a risk assessment and is done by sitting down and working out how many different ways people can find in which to hurt/endanger themselves on your chosen site....and believe me the punters can be well creative

___________________________________________

an easy way to get the risk assesssment done is to start by identifying all the possible hazards

1. choose your site
2. go round the site and look at physical hazards relating to it [ditches, walls, rivers, sudden drops, trees, etc,etc] and make a full and complete list of all of them. remember to include the access to and from the site. once you have exhausted the possibilities of the site then
3. move on to stuff you are bringing on to the site for the event so in the case of a dance event that is your soundsystem, lights, generator, tents, bar, etc - again identify any possible hazard (however insignificant it may seem to you) such as tripping over guyropes and cables; electrics getting wet, muppets falling over and knocking the stacks down, electric shocks, etc and add those to the list in a new section
4. now you consider the potentially most hazardous part - list all the possible hazards you can create by bringing people onto the site [remember to include hazards arising from intoxication - people do stupid things when they have had too much of anything]
5. finally add the hazards which arise from the weather and its potential extremes

____________________________

Once you have the list above you then sit down and work out who is actually at risk - so joe public, crew only, inebriated people and so on
[ in a lot of cases everyone will be at risk; dont panic this is normal]

_____________________

identify the risks each hazard poses
as an example: uneven ground poses a falling and a slipping risk
everyone on the site is at risk of this

traffic on the site is a hazard which poses a risk of hitting people, a risk of hitting structures and a risk of collision with other vehicles
again all on site are at risk of this one

risks which may be restricted are those in crew only areas or related to the use of eg. lpg in camping areas



ok you have your hazards and your risks now; do the above before you try to move on to the next bit - it will save you time in the long run [ trust me i know having learnt the hard way]

___________________________

the next bit is where you look at each RISK [not hazard] individually and assign a number from 1 [low] to 10 [high] according to how likely it is to happen [ you can put in brackets next to it a figure for extreme weather as this can make some risks far more likely]

______________________________

ok so now you have the risks for the site
go and get someone to give you a big pat on the back; it gets easier from now on in

________________________________-

now you work out what are called control measures for each risk - this means that you reduce the risk in some appropiate way so it is As Low As Reasonably Possible [AFARP] and the risk, So Far As Is Reasonably Possible [SFAIRP], is minimised

going with the examples above:

Vehicles: you can ban nighttime traffic on the site to reduce likelihood of collision with pedestrians and also use stewards to direct traffic at all times to minimise all forms of collisions

Uneven Ground: you can cut the grass so it is easier to see where the ground is uneven; also fill in any bigtime potholes so people dont fall into them

_________________________________

ok so now you have the control measures you need to work out if they are feasible - you do this by working out how much the risk is reduced by the measure, whether the measure in itself causes new risks worse than those it is avoiding and how expensive it is going to be to implement

to do this assign the risk a new severity score with the control measure implemented - is the reduction in risk going to be enough to outweigh the hassle of using the control measure [if the risk is not reduced enough to justify the control measure it is called a tolerable risk]


[ as an example it was once suggested to me that i should put up metal fencing along the sides of a river running through the middle of the site - not very sensible as the uneven ground and wrecked partygoers made it a bigger risk IMO than the river itself ie. it could have fallen on someone, someone could have climbed it and hurt themselves, etc - so i got round this by having 5 extra stewards on 'river' patrol and lighting it at night so we could see if anyone fell in which looked really mad ]
[ you have to have very good reasons and alternative solutions to the problem if you dont want to use an Enviromental Health Officer's suggested control measure but it can be done]


The point of control measures is to make the risk as small as is possible preferably as cheap as possible [for your benefit]
for a large number of risks stewards are the correct control measure TBH

most other control measures [not stewards] are common sense like having first aiders, spare clothes, glowsticks on guy ropes, tennis balls on big tent spikes, cordonned off areas for crew only, safe fuel storage, speaker stacks tied down - once you do most of these once you will see they are well worth the extra work

_____________________________

the good news is once you have done this once you can pretty much recycle large parts of the Risk Assessment every time you go to a new site [ so they take less time after the first one]


one of the reasons for having a risk assessment for an event is that, should something go badly wrong, you will be able to prove [asssuming you implement any control measures defined in it] that you have done all that is reasonable to keep the people at the event safe and that you have not failed in your duty of care to them

______________________________

NB with events on agricultural land which has animals on it most of the time the field has to be empty of cattle for a minimum 3 weeks before the event due to E-coli risks

NB 2 human waste is the most dangerous excrement known so adequate toilet facilities are essential [be they portaloos, compost toilets or pit loos]
check with the local Enviromental Health Officer and Enviromental Pollution Agency officer for what is acceptable if in doubt

[free spirit]

All good advice above, also worth bearing in mind you're likely to be asked for proof of public liability insurance for the event, toilet facilities etc.

[globalloon]

Originally posted by free spirit

All good advice above, also worth bearing in mind you're likely to be asked for proof of public liability insurance for the event, toilet facilities etc.

you don't need public liability for a private gathering, so depends on the event

[free spirit]

Originally posted by globalloon

you don't need public liability for a private gathering, so depends on the event

depends how the council views it really though, if it's a party for 499 people I'd not be surprised for them to ask for evidence of public liability insurance as bottom line if anything happened to someone and there was no insurance it'd not take a genius of a lawyer to work out that the council should have insisted on it as part of the licence, were therefore negligent and can be sued instead...

at the moment it probably does depend on the type of event, and the local councils interpretation, but I'd be surprised if it didn't become more standard over the next couple of years.

[globalloon]

if it's in a public hall, or a pub ,or any public venue, then they should already have public liability, but if you're applying for a private gathering on private land, it doesn't apply

[free spirit]

Originally posted by globalloon

if it's in a public hall, or a pub ,or any public venue, then they should already have public liability, but if you're applying for a private gathering on private land, it doesn't apply

ok I take your point, though if we were applying for a TEN, I'd not be wanting to still have the whole private party bollocks going on as well just for the sake of getting round public liability insurance - may as well have a license that allows you to promote it openly to the public rather than adding in your own complications IMO.

main problem I see with TEN's is restricting numbers to 499. When we've advertised outdoor parties even slightly in advance we've been getting well over 500 so I'm not sure how we'd go about limiting the numbers unless we did it ticketed.

I have had conversations with licensing up here suggesting you could maybe apply for more than one for the same event - ie. one for each rig, though I've not tried it and don't know if it's been tried by anyone / if it'd go through or not... would require an onside licensing team bending the rules slightly I think, and the guy might have been talking bollocks but worth checking out.

[Raj]

sounds like bollocks to me

and getting one license for an event does not guarantee getting all of them [I heard from someone I know about an event which was granted its alcohol license but not its TENs - result £600 out of pocket and unable to use the venue even though they could sell alcohol ]

[free spirit]

Originally posted by Raj

sounds like bollocks to me

yeah, you're probably right, was around the time they were first introduced when nobody really knew how they were going to work, licensing officers included.

Then again the administration of them is largely done at the council and polices discretion, so as I said if they're on board then anything's possible.

The initial suggestion surrounded the licensing of a big free council funded community festival I was running at the time when it looked likely that the license might fuck up because the council licensing people hadn't got their shit together - they basically said if necessary they'd push the license for the event through on multiple TEN's, with one for each stage. It's obviously a different scenario to a free party, but shows that technically it may be possible.

[globalloon]

Originally posted by free spirit

yeah, you're probably right, was around the time they were first introduced when nobody really knew how they were going to work, licensing officers included.

Then again the administration of them is largely done at the council and polices discretion, so as I said if they're on board then anything's possible.

The initial suggestion surrounded the licensing of a big free council funded community festival I was running at the time when it looked likely that the license might fuck up because the council licensing people hadn't got their shit together - they basically said if necessary they'd push the license for the event through on multiple TEN's, with one for each stage. It's obviously a different scenario to a free party, but shows that technically it may be possible.

same thing happened for a community festival here, one TEN for each marquee, then again, the marquees were for very different purposes (1 for music, 1 for children'd play etc)

[General Lighting]

I think Planet Yes last year also had two TENS, one for each marquee...

[free spirit]

Originally posted by General Lighting

I think Planet Yes last year also had two TENS, one for each marquee...

ah cool, so technically muliple tens is a possiblity, though probably only occasionally if police and council are onside?

seriously thinking about giving this a try for a beach party at a venue we've done regularly with no problems for the last 10 years or so.

will report back if we go for it

[Raj]

A note on deadlines for TENs - these usually have a minimum period before the event by which they have to be submitted.

I think it is about 10 days [this is on the advise of a licensing officer who kindly took the time to read this thread] but remember to check with your local council as they may have elected to use a longer minimum period before the event occurs for these submissions.

This delay allows the documentation you are providing to be circulated to the police, licensing department, fire services, ambulance coordinator, etc for their comments and suggestions/conditions to be attached to the license when one is hopefully granted to you. [I will take this chance to point out that the longer the submission is in before the event the more chance the council officials will have to ask you to make modifications to it which may facilitate the grant of a license - ask for the officials input informally before you submit if you are worried about a particular aspect ]

[globalloon]

just thought it was timely to point out that over august bank holiday there were a number of very good quality parties around devon that had a TEN that all passed off without any hassle and the feedback from a lot of people has been that they were some of the best events in years

better than bigger festivals because they maintained that organic, intimate feel
better than free party because there was no sketchyness and somewhere to go to the toilet
better than any club because you could camp and make a weekend of it

this is an opportunity to be used and used well... there has already been debate in parliament about stopping TENs because it could make it too easy fro raves to happen, so we need to use it and prove that most crews, DJs and party goers just want to have some good natured fun and are cool enough to do it without causing any problems to anyone else

if we can do that, the riot-heads can be alienated altogether and we could win back some respect and more importantly, freedom

[General Lighting]

Originally posted by globalloon

if we can do that, the riot-heads can be alienated altogether and we could win back some respect and more importantly, freedom

In some areas of France they have downsized the amount of bureaucracy needed to get parties held under their equivalent of TENS, this is a fellow EU country just next door to us so no reason why this couldn't eventually happen here as well..

[globalloon]

it might also be worth mentioning that many local authorities have or are in the process of licensing their land / public spaces etc

so, for example, I'm organising a 1-day community festival at the moment... i don't have to even apply for a license, just permission to use the land (this involves showing public liability insurance, safety measures, who is responsible for clearing up etc) and is free

we're anticipating a couple of thousand people, will have live bands, DJ & MC workshops, headline acts, circus, fun fair etc and have tapped into grants available to any community group to cover the costs

this is a good way to get your local council to get on board... i realise that it will be harder in some areas (we're lucky in Exeter to have a fairly forward-thinking council) but this kind of thing is worth the effort... bear in mind the amount of work involved in throwing a free party and the potential risks... this is like a walk in the park... or a festival in the park: t be more precise

[globalloon]

Originally posted by General Lighting

In some areas of France they have downsized the amount of bureaucracy needed to get parties held under their equivalent of TENS, this is a fellow EU country just next door to us so no reason why this couldn't eventually happen here as well..

IME the paperwork for a TEN is minimal

[binge]

Interesting stuff. Although not sure if I want to risk it in this currant climate.

[General Lighting]

Originally posted by binge

Interesting stuff. Although not sure if I want to risk it in this currant climate.

Planet Yes have already used TENS in Norfolk for their halloween event. I attended this and found it no different to a free party (OK slightly more "Pams House" type of people maybe but the atmosphere was still good)

Even the Suffolk cops and councils have hinted they would accept licensed events

I expect they wouldn't be pushovers with regard to safety/licensing conditions and it would be a fair bit of effort, but the outcome seems better to me than 70 riot cops shutting down parties and confiscating rigs.

OK the hearts and minds bit may not be easy due to past mistakes but what is actually holding people back?

Is it "fear of babylon" or more that EA ravers at present simply lack the organisational skills, discipline and comradeship required to even apply for such an event - or if one were to happen (some) perhaps couldn't be trusted to behave appropriately, so the more sensible people don't want to put their names on the line?

[All Ways Acid!]

Im seriously interested in these tens notices.
we got access to rig, djs, alcohol licence holder, just need a barn in cornwall with good access, and ill give it a go. Any ideas??
watch this space!

[globalloon]

Originally posted by All Ways Acid!

Im seriously interested in these tens notices.
we got access to rig, djs, alcohol licence holder, just need a barn in cornwall with good access, and ill give it a go. Any ideas??
watch this space!

or a friendly campsite owner?

[All Ways Acid!]

yep i know a couple a campsite owners, trouble is the neighbours!!

[funkydan]

how would you go about getting a larger liscence for events such as festivals?

[General Lighting]

Originally posted by funkydan

how would you go about getting a larger liscence for events such as festivals?

you have to pay full whack (about £600-£800 whether or not the app is succesful) and attend a series of meetings with cops, fire brigade etc

bear in mind though 500 people is a lot of people especially for a new crew to start with and a TENS can allow up to 96 hours of partying. Most raves I have been to in East Anglia have about 200-250 people tops and a lot less than that normally...