Martyn's Law for events and festivals
Last reviewed:
If you're organising an event or festival, Martyn's Law may apply to it through a separate part of the Act from ordinary premises duties: the qualifying events regime, with its own threshold and its own conditions. Here's what that actually means, and how it differs from the premises duties covered on our other guides.
Premises duties versus event duties
Before working out what applies to you, it helps to treat "does my venue have duties" and "is my event a qualifying event" as two separate questions with two separate answers.
| Premises route | Events route | |
|---|---|---|
| Who it applies to | Whoever controls a building used for a Schedule 1 purpose | Whoever controls the premises for a specific qualifying event |
| Threshold | 200 (standard) / 800 (enhanced), reasonably expected at once | 800+, accessible to the public, secure checked perimeter |
| Duties | Tier-appropriate procedures, and measures if enhanced | Enhanced-style procedures, measures and a compliance document, plus notifying the regulator |
A venue can be in scope on the premises route with no qualifying event ever happening there, and a one-off qualifying event can trigger duties at a venue that has no standing duties of its own the rest of the year. Both things are true of a village hall that's normally under 200 but hosts one 800+ ticketed fundraiser a year.
How to tell if your event is a qualifying event
An event is a qualifying event only when all three of these are true at once.
- 800 or more people are reasonably expected to be present at the same time, staff included.
- The event is accessible to the public. Private, invite-only occasions are not. The guidance's own example is a 900-person invite-only corporate networking event, which sits outside the qualifying events regime entirely, however many people attend, because it was never open to the public in the first place.
- There's a well-defined and secure perimeter, with entry checks verifying payment, tickets or membership. An open field with no gate and no checks doesn't meet this condition, whatever the crowd size.
Miss any one of the three and it isn't a qualifying event, though the venue hosting it may still have its own separate premises duties. That's the distinction worth getting straight before anything else.
Below are some scenarios to help illustrate this:
- Scenario A (qualifying event). A ticketed 1,200-person food festival in a park, gated entry, wristbands checked at the gate. All three conditions met.
- Scenario B (not a qualifying event, twice over). A free 500-person village fete, open field, no gate. It fails the entry-check condition and falls short of 800 anyway.
- Scenario C (private, so out either way). A 300-person wedding at a hotel. Private and well under 800, so it isn't a qualifying event either way. The hotel's own premises duties, if it separately meets the 200 threshold, are what govern here. See Martyn's Law for hotels and B&Bs.
The numbers add up faster than organisers expect. The guidance's own worked example is a field-based music event selling 900 tickets, plus around 300 staff, stewards, caterers and site crew, coming to 1,200, a qualifying event by a wide margin even before any walk-up attendance. Capping attendance is a legitimate way to stay under the threshold, not a workaround: the guidance's own example is a museum capping a one-off exhibition at 750 through timed entry, which keeps the event within the museum's ordinary, lower-tier requirements. The cap has to be real and enforced through the entry system, not just a stated limit nobody checks.
Who is the "responsible person" for a qualifying event?
Responsibility follows control of the premises for the event, and a hirer who takes control becomes the event's responsible person even if they don't normally have anything to do with the venue.
The guidance's own example: a private company hires a village hall for an 800+ ticketed fundraiser. The company, as the party in control of the premises for that event, is the event's responsible person and must meet the enhanced-style duties, including notifying the regulator and submitting a compliance document. The hall's usual committee remains responsible for the premises the rest of the time, but not for this event.
If the venue's own operator retains control instead of handing it to a hirer, an outdoor concert series where the park keeps running its own stewarding and ticketing, say, the operator stays the responsible person even though contractors are doing the on-the-ground work.
What a qualifying event requires
A recurring festival's status is answered the same way, one instance at a time, by the three conditions above. But recurrence also matters for the host site's own premises status separately: a predictable annual peak can bring premises into scope even if most of the year they're empty. See the "from time to time" rule.
A qualifying event carries enhanced-style duties: notifying the regulator, public protection procedures and measures, and a compliance document setting out the reasoning behind them. See the enhanced tier explained for the full detail, since it's the same standard a qualifying event is held to.
What our checker covers, and what this page covers instead
Our free tier checker is built around premises: it tells you where a building or site sits based on who it could reasonably expect to have present. It doesn't currently walk through the separate qualifying-events test, since that's a different legal question with its own three conditions, not a tier lookup.
If you're planning a one-off event rather than assessing a standing venue, work through the three conditions above directly, and see outdoor spaces and open-air events for how outdoor premises are counted.
Start with the free tier checker for your venue's standing premises duties, no email required.
Common questions
Is my 500-person event in scope?
Not as a qualifying event, no. Qualifying events need 800 or more reasonably expected at once, staff included, so 500 falls short of that threshold regardless of ticketing or entry checks. The premises hosting it may still have its own standard-tier duties if it separately meets the 200 threshold, that's a premises question, not an events one.
Does free entry exempt my festival?
No, and "exempt" isn't quite the right way to think about it. What matters is whether there's a defined, secure perimeter with entry checks, verifying payment, tickets or membership, not whether money changes hands. A free festival with a ticketed, checked entrance and 800+ expected can still be a qualifying event. A free festival with open, uncontrolled access simply doesn't meet the entry-check condition, whatever it costs to get in.
Can I cap attendance to stay under 800?
Yes. Timed entry and ticket limits are a legitimate planning tool, not a loophole, and the guidance's own example uses exactly this: a museum capping a one-off exhibition at 750 through timed entry stays within its normal, lower-tier requirements rather than becoming a qualifying event. The cap has to be real and enforced, not just a number on a poster.
Do I notify the SIA for a one-off qualifying event?
Yes. Where a hirer takes control of a premises for an 800+ ticketed event, the guidance's own fundraiser example has that hirer, as the event's responsible person, notifying the regulator and submitting a compliance document, the same enhanced-style duty that applies to any qualifying event, even a single one-off date.
About this guide. Written by the Martyn's Law Plan team, based on the statutory guidance published under the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. Last reviewed: . Read the official guidance on GOV.UK.
Sources: Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025; Home Office statutory guidance (April 2026, updated May 2026) and supplementary documents. Paragraph references are to the statutory guidance. General information, not legal advice. Contains public sector information licensed under the Open Government Licence v3.0.