The following from Hamish Birchall

If you 'tick the box' for live music you move on to another section of
the application form. Here you must set out the days of the week and
times during the day when live performance is proposed.

You must also set out the measures you intend to implement to deal with the risks of crime and disorder, public nuisance, public safety, and protection of children from harm (not forgetting, of course, that under separate safety legislation you must have a written risk assessment for ALL activities on the premises - if you have five or more people working there).

You must then publicly advertise this application at your own
expense. It cost the village hall in last week's BBC report £250. It
is likely be more for inner-city premises.

You must also attach scale drawings of the premises. The completed
application, which will now run to over 26 pages, must then be
submitted to 8 different authorities including the police, fire
authority, planning, licensing and environmental health departments of
your local authority.

If any of the relevant authorities, including the public, raise an
objection, this may then go to a public hearing. Legal representation
is not necessary, but in many cases it is advisable.

Assuming the local authority gets round to processing the application
within two months, the licensing committee of the local authority will
then decide whether to impose conditions. If this application isn't
processed within two months, it is deemed refused.

Let's assume the licensee has been cautious, and had asked for a folk
session on Wednesday, 7-11pm, and a jazz band on Saturday, 8-11pm. And
let's assume the licensee is fortunate in that the local authorty in
the end does give permission without onerous conditions. What this
means is that promoting live music on any other day or time, other than originally specified, is a potential criminal offence.

To increase the number of days live music can be provided, or to change the days, the licensee must re-apply to 'vary' the licence, plus a licence fee, plus advertising costs, plus all the red tape palaver of the original application.

But what if the landlord is unlucky? What if there are a number of
local objectors, for example, and the local authority decides that they cannot risk granting the licence without a condition that a registered door supervisor must be on the premises whenever the live music is provided (a common condition of public entertainment licences at the moment). The landlord is faced with accepting the condition (costly) or appealing to the magistrates court (costly, time consuming and uncertain), or re-applying at some later date (costly, time consuming and uncertain).

So much easier, isn't it, just to convert an existing alcohol licence
and automatically carry forward the provision of big screen sport (and
music) broadcasts, and recorded music. Conversion applications are
automatically granted if not processed within two months.

Hamish Birchall