Memorandum submitted by Asgard Promotions
Ltd
I am a director of Asgard Promotions Ltd, a
concert promotions and booking agency company. I am a member of
the Home Office Art and Entertainments Taskforce for the Points
Based System, on behalf of both the Concert Promoters Association
and the Agents' Association.
Between the two organisations we represent virtually
every major company involved in the presentation of contemporary
live music concerts and festivals in the UK, including Live Nation
(Buce Springsteen, Madonna, Neil Young), AEG (Michael Jackson,
Prince), SJM, Metropolis, Marshall Arts, etc.
Last week PRS for Music produced figures showing
that in 2008 the turnover for live music industry in the UK overtook
the recorded music sector with a total of £1,279 million
(including booking fees and ancilliary incomes—primary ticket
sales accounted for £904 million).
I have watched the internet showings of the
two recent Select Committees relating to the PBS and am concerned
that despite the size and relevance of our industry we are not
directly represented and our specific concerns barely touched
upon.
We have been consulted via the Taskforce from
its inception and have watched the proposals for the PBS develop.
There has always been a reticence from the music industry to see
the artists that we bring into the UK be classified by the term
"migrants" and for them to be lumped in with the many
different categories of workers that come here, and have consistently
pointed out to the respective ministers, the Home Office and now
UKBA that the "one size fits all" does not work easily
for the creative sector.
The large majority of the artists that do come
here for our members fall into the category of "non-visa"
and are here for less that three months, so we are extremely pleased
with the concession given to these last year. With this concession
granted we are, in general, very pleased with the new system and
feel that in the long-term it will be better for all of us to
work with.
However, we do have some very pressing concerns
that we feel need addressing. I have seen the submission by the
National Campaign for the Arts and fully endorse the points they
make, particularly with regards to the haste with which the final
system went "live", the IT problems and the suggested
changes they suggest.
The specific problems that we are seeing:
(i) the one-size fits all problem is very
apparent with the online application form. There are over 40 questions
to be answered and probably only 20 of them are relevant to the
Tier 5 creative sector. The time taken to fill this is painfully
slow, and then we are having to repeat it for each member of the
entourage. With some of the bigger acts having 30, 40 or more
in the tour party we are seeing staff having to spend a large
amount of time on this. We have been told that some improvements
will be made, but no time has been given for this except "later
this year";
(ii) when the above mentioned concession was
introduced, we were not aware that the multiple entry facility
(available for a regular advance entry clearance application)
would not apply. This means that—as so often happens—with
an act opening their tour in the UK and then playing a few shows
on the continent before returning to play one or more shows here
the entire time-consuming exercise is having to be repeated for
no obvious reason; and
(iii) continuing and incessant problems with
processing of visa applications around the world, despite repeated
assurances that this would not happen. In early meeting we were
told of a 24 hour turnaround time, but this turns out to not be
practical anywhere. In most places the passports are needing to
be send from one consulate to another for the actual processing
and seven to 14 days seems to be the norm. For a tourning act
in some cases this is almost impossible to deal with and is causing
severe problems.
I apologise for the delay in getting this submission
into the Select Committee, I hope that you have the time to consider
the issues raised.
March 2009
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