Club operator slams PPL

PPL plans to increase its SFE fees, which apply to events where sound recordings are a main attraction, such as DJ sets, by 10-fold for the average pub, and up to 4,000% for the largest nightclubs.

PPL says the current tariff is “not a fair reflection of the value of its licence”.

The proposed new charges are based on a calculation of how much extra customers are likely to spend when an SFE event takes place, with fees based on average attendance, plus the number and duration of SFE events.

Alan Maskell, who runs 42nd Street nightclub in Manchester, said his annual fee would rise from £7,746.30p to £78,523.85p.

“An increase of this magnitude would wipe me out!” Maskell told PPL in response to its consultation.

“I guarantee you will effectively kill the playing of music in the majority of premises in Manchester and, I imagine, much of the rest of the country. This is cloud cuckoo land.

“I couldn’t sleep last night thinking about the impact this will have on my life.

“I will lose my business and you will put nearly 50 people out of work just at my premises.”

Maskell, also a director of American dining concept Big Easy, slated the “seriously flawed” survey used to calculate the fees — for example, by surveying bars in London, where customers’ spending habits and admission prices are very different to elsewhere in Britain.

He also questioned why PPL should receive one-third of the “value per customer” figure. “Yes, the event cannot take place without the music, but the music has a one-off cost, while the venue incurs a cost every time it opens, and pays a fee on each occasion.”

Maskell said one alternative may be to link the SFE fee to RPI. “To many businesses, even that’d be painful, but it’s a million times better than this.”

The proposed increase has been roundly condemned in the pub and nightclub industries. The Association of Licensed Multiple Retailers described it as a “dawn raid” on the industry.