Care needs to be taken when phrasing petitions. Music and dance do not always need regulation but sometimes they obviously do. At one extreme lie illegal raves which can keep the population of many square miles awake for days and nights on end, provide a major boost for the local recreational chemical industry, and have thousands doing what bears do in the woods, resulting in a distasteful situation that will remain for a considerable time.    At another point on the envelope lies the huge commercial festival - such as Glastonbury. At another lies outdoor opera - where again the sound can carry for miles and the wealthy patrons believe that local rules need not apply to them. Then of course you have the the contrasts of on the one hand warehouses (adapted or otherwise) thudding to "music of black origin" and the turf wars of rappers, but on the other hand the may dance or genteel tea dance. And naturally at some point you come to "incidental" music in premises that, because they lawfully sell alcohol for consumption on the premises are already substantially regulated, but where some types of music add to disorder (believe me, I live between two pubs - let's face it where people or animals, and sometimes the distinction can be hard to draw, compete for mates there is going to be violence) but some types of music such as unamplified folk music which are going to be inaudible 50 yards away and (apart from people like the loathsome performer on the "musical" saw at last year's Miskin festival) never or virtually never lead to disturbance.

A call for total or almost total deregulation of music and dance lacks any sort of credibility and frankly damages the possibly otherwise attainable causes of "our" lobby.

What could be done is to exempt music performed without electrical amplification, wholly or mainly for the enjoyment of those making it, and to define "incidental" or at least create some presumptions as to the meaning of that word that will give some sensible structure.