New Years Eve sees the close of the PRS consultation on raising their fees for ticketed live music events. The deadline was extended from
7th September 2010.

Currently at 3% of ticket price, the PRS fee has not been changed since 1998. The rights organisation claim they have been urged by "key
stakeholders and some customer groups within the sector to review the tariff". Their intention is to bring the rate more inline with
European standards of 10% of the ticket price.

Events and Corporate Hospitality magazine Red Carpet received a copy of the consultation document and say in their web article, "Its
rationale for review rests on the fact that the current tariffs have been in place for the past 20 years. "The live music industry has
changed considerably in the last twenty years and this consultation will be open to everyone, to discuss the changes and whether the
current tariff structure is relevant for today’s live scene in the UK,” said Jeremy Fabinyi, executive director licensing, PRS for Music.
They estimate that "Music fans spent around £1.45bn on live music in 2009 and this was up 4% on the previous year".

http://www.redcarpetmagazine.co.uk/readmore.aspx?id=136

Red Carpet estimate that PRS will be looking to raise the rate to around 8% which is almost treble the current rate. This represents
blatant greed by PRS at a time when live music is set to suffer as much as any other sector from austerity measures and an increase in VAT.

Since the consultation is open to everyone, then we all have the opportunity to voice our disapproval. The PRS Consultation on ticketed
music events is at this address,

http://www.prsformusic.com/users/businessesandliveevents/musicforbusinesses/customerconsultation/Pages/TicketedPopularMusicEvents.aspx

and you can email your opposition to,

customer.consultation@prsformusic.com

Keep Live Music

Phil Little
Live Music Forum