UK Music Chief Executive Tom Kiehl urged the Government to change entertainment licensing law and introduce a positive duty for local authorities to promote cultural wellbeing and the night time economy in communities and neighbourhoods.
The call followed the publication of a new report from the Night Time Industries Association (NTIA) which revealed the total economic contribution for electronic music from nightclubs had fallen by 16% in 2024 to £1.2 billion.
The report ‘Electronic Beats, Economic Treats’ is the third annual report into the UK electronic music industry and was the subject of a panel that Tom was participating in at the NTIA’s Night Time Economy Summit at the Hockley Social Club in Birmingham.
At present the Licensing Act, which provides the legislative framework by which live music can take place, has four objectives – preventing crime and disorder, public safety, preventing public nuisance and protecting children from harm.
The four objectives are very important for public confidence in events and need to be satisfied by a local authority when permissions to venues or events.
However, the objectives can be interpreted negatively, meaning that decisions by licensing authorities are first and foremost approached on the basis of being preventative to arts, culture, music and creativity, rather than enabling.
Tom’s proposal, which would introduce a new fifth objective into law, would encourage local decision makers to also take into consideration the positive benefits of activities of nightclubs and their impact on the night time economy in towns and cities across the UK.
The introduction of such a cultural objective could level the playing field when applications by venues and promoters are considered by local councils, and licenses reviewed, helping the fight against venue and festival closures and leading to more music being performed across the country.
Tom made this suggestion in response to a question from panel moderator, BBC Radio 1 DJ Danny Howard, asking participants, including Rufy Ghazi (Audience Strategies, who authored the report), Sunil Sharpe (Give us the Night ROI) and Nikki McNeill (Global Publicity), what one measure they would ask government to take to reset the balance in support of nightclubs.
The panel discussed a number of other aspects of the NTIA report, with Tom highlighting the good news that the economic contribution from electronic music festivals increased by 14% to £567.8 million in 2024, despite wider a challenging environment for the festival sector with 72 events cancelled, postponed or closed in 2024. Tom also highlighted how important electronic music is to UK music exports generally and urged attendees at the summit to respond to the government’s consultation on AI and copyright ahead of the February 25 deadline, given the profound implications for the future of music generally.
