A Pan-Youropean Contract

Europe’s leading festivals association has drafted new terms and conditions for acts wanting to play the events organised by its members.

Yourope’s members have spent months mulling over the new contract, receiving advice from music lawyer Ben Challis and insurance broker James Dodds from Doodson Insurance.

“It should make life easier for festivals as they have standard terms for important topics, rather than a number of contract terms which they can’t fulfill,” says Yourope general secretary Christof Huber, who also manages Switzerland’s Openair St. Gallen Festival.

Other major European festivals that are members of Yourope include Sziget Festival (Hungary), Heineken Open’er (Poland), Exit (Serbia), Melt! (Germany), Oya (Norway), and Turkey’s One Love Festival.

Challis, who is in-house lawyer for the UK’s Glastonbury Festival, focused on clauses covering cancellations, force majeure, and the legal problems that can arise when an event is unavoidably canceled or an act doesn’t show.

He told Pollstar the standard contract should also prevent artists or their agents from waiting until two days before the event before sending “a 40-page contract rider” containing ridiculous – and often irrelevant – demands.
He says at that stage the festival barely has time to read the rider, let alone comply with it or contest it.

“At Glastonbury we once had an American act that insisted upon its tour manager having responsibility for the venue security,” he explained. “We have a four-and-a-half mile perimeter fence around the site. How is the tour manager going to be responsible for that?”

Challis believes the problem arises when a festival headliner sends out its standard stadium contract rider to cover the event.

“Sometimes acts insist on looking at the takings and costs. If they’re playing a festival for a flat guarantee and no percentage, there’s no reason to demand access to the figures,” he said.

The publishing of Yourope festivals’ new terms and conditions is said to have received “a mixed reaction” from agents, particularly the clauses relating to force majeure and cancellations.

The force majeure clause says that if a festival is wiped out by the proverbial “Act Of God,” such as the weather that leveled last year’s Pukkelpop Festival in Belgium, then the event would not be responsible for paying the artists’ fees.

It says “all monies previously paid by the promoter to the artist shall be promptly refunded and returned by the artist.”
The new cancellation clause has been framed to prevent an act from pulling out of a festival show anytime up to a month ahead of time.

Some artist contracts include the so-called 30-day notice, enabling the act to cancel without penalty as long as it notifies the festival at least 30 days before the appearance date.

The new Yourope clause commits the act from the point the show is confirmed, making it less likely that a festival will lose a major headliner that’s been advertising for several months.

It says the artist must acknowledge that once a performance is confirmed, it will be publicised and the general public will buy tickets knowing that the act will perform.

It also makes the artist liable for the festival’s “direct costs” if for any reason – apart from illness – it does pull out of a confirmed appearance.