For landlords · the question everyone asks second
Do you need a licence to run a vinyl night?
Almost certainly you already have one, and the extra it costs is single figures a night. Here is the whole answer, in the order the questions actually come up, including the bit most people get wrong. We don't sell licences, we don't take a cut of one, and we are not lawyers — but not knowing the answer is a daft reason for a pub to say no to a good night.
The two-minute version
Two completely separate things get muddled together. They are not the same licence and one does not cover the other.
In England and Wales, recorded music at licensed premises, to an audience of up to 500, between 8am and 11pm, is deregulated. A night that finishes by eleven needs nothing added to the licence you already hold — unless yours carries music conditions imposed at a review, which still bite. Scotland and Northern Ireland run different systems.
The copyright side — PPL and PRS, billed together by PPL PRS as one licence. It covers the radio, the telly, background music, live acts and karaoke. Most pubs have had one for years.
A night that reads as an event rather than background music is charged per night, on how many came and how long it ran, on the bill you already get. Whether yours reads that way is a judgement call — the next section is the honest version of it.
Event, or just music?
This is where the money is, and where nearly all the confusion lives. Your licence already covers music at the pub — the radio, the telly, the jukebox, background music. What costs extra is Specially Featured Entertainment: PPL's tariff for “discos, dances and DJ sets/presentations”, the last of which the tariff defines as where a DJ is used to play the sound recordings.
A vinyl night can land either side of that line, and most pages on this subject pretend otherwise.
- ·You advertise it — a named night, a poster, a post
- ·People come for it, rather than finding it on
- ·There is a running order, slots or a ballot
- ·It has a start time, or the pub's normal music stops for it
- ·Anyone is booked or paid to play
- ·No billing, no poster, no start time
- ·Regulars handing records over the bar, much like a jukebox
- ·It stays background — people are in for a pint, not a set
- ·Nobody is announced, and nobody is paid
Being straight about it: a Snug Club night — a ballot, slots, a code on the beer mat, an evening people turn up for — will usually read as an event, and we would rather say so here than have you find out at the annual reconciliation. If yours is genuinely the quiet, unadvertised sort, describe it exactly that way when you ring and let them tell you.
What it costs, with your own numbers
If it is chargeable, PPL work it out from two things: how many people were there, in bands of 25, and how long it ran. Under an hour counts as an hour; above that it rounds up to the nearest half hour. Move the sliders.
2 × 2 × £1.25 = £5.00
Run the slots back to back. Duration is measured from the start of the event to the end of it, not the minutes the records are actually spinning. Six twenty-minute slots run together is a two-hour event. The same six spread across the evening with gaps between them is a four-hour one, at twice the price.
Treat that figure as the floor, not the total. It is the PPL element only, before VAT. The PRS element is worked out on a different basis and billed alongside it on the same licence. The tariff also steps up every January on its way to 2031, so this is a number to re-check rather than memorise — which is why the rate above is a box you can type in.
If a pub is turning down a night that fills a Thursday over this, it is worth doing the sum in front of them. But do it with their numbers, and ring PPL PRS for the real figure rather than quoting ours.
The ones that come up every time
They're my own records. Surely that's fine?
No — and this is the one that catches people. Buying a record buys you the disc, not the right to play it to a room. Copyright follows the public performance, not who owns the copy. There is no minimum either: twenty minutes counts the same as three hours. Same for a CD, a memory stick, or your own Spotify account.
It's not a disco. People are just bringing records in.
That is a fair argument and worth understanding rather than waving away. PPL's tariff covers “discos, dances and DJ sets/presentations”, and defines the last as where a DJ is used to play the sound recordings. Six regulars taking turns is not obviously a DJ being used, and a genuinely informal session has a real case for sitting inside the licence you already hold. What weakens that case is everything that makes a night good — a name, a start time, a running order, a poster. The section above sets out both sides.
Do I have to tell them, or do I just run it?
Tell them. You keep a note of how many were there and how long each event ran, and PPL PRS reconcile it against your estimate once a year. Adding a regular night to an existing licence is a phone call, not a form — and it is the call that settles whether yours is chargeable as an event in the first place.
Does it matter that it's weekly rather than monthly?
Only in the total, but the total is the bit landlords actually care about. The per-night sum is identical; a weekly night is just 52 of them instead of 12. A five-pound night is around £260 a year on the PPL side — still small against what a full Thursday takes, but a budget line rather than a rounding error. Put your own frequency into the calculator before you decide.
What if I haven't got TheMusicLicence at all?
Then the vinyl night is the least of it — the radio behind the bar and the telly in the corner already need one. Ring them before you run anything. It is a much better conversation to start than to be on the receiving end of.
What actually happens if I don't bother?
Fees backdated to when the music started, plus a surcharge — the tariff sets that at 50% of the standard fee, for each site where undeclared events took place, capped for the licence year at a figure the tariff itself indexes upwards: £1,156.63 in the 2025 tariff. They do check, and they do look at what venues put on social media. A four-figure cap is a poor trade for the fiver you saved.
What we do, and what we don't
The licence is between your pub and PPL PRS. We are not your agent, we take no commission on it, and we could not get you a discount if we tried.
What we do is not pretend the question isn't there. The ballots, the four-digit code on the beer mat and the scoring are ours, and none of it is licensable in itself — though, as above, it is exactly the sort of thing that makes a night read as an event. The music is the bit that is licensable, and it always was. A vinyl night just puts a name on an evening that was already happening in a lot of pubs.
Say: “We already have TheMusicLicence. We're adding a regular recorded-music night — about forty people, two hours, once a week. Is that specially featured entertainment, and what does it add?” That is the whole conversation.
Checked 7 September 2026 · PPL SFE tariff re-checked 27 September 2026 · not legal advice
A plain-English summary of published tariffs and government guidance, written for landlords who want the gist before they ring anyone. Tariffs change every January, and what you pay depends on your own venue and licence. Whether a particular night is charged as specially featured entertainment is PPL PRS’s call, not ours. Nothing here is legal advice and The Snug Club is not connected to PPL, PRS or PPL PRS Ltd.
- PPL PRS — TheMusicLicence for pubs and bars
- PPL — Specially Featured Entertainment tariff (PPLPP299)
- PPL — SFE tariff, the phased rates through to 2031
- legislation.gov.uk — The Legislative Reform (Entertainment Licensing) Order 2014
- House of Commons Library — The Live Music Act 2012
- NTIA — PPL's SFE tariff, FAQs