Entertainment Contract

[Johnamill]

We signed a "contract" for an entertainment act, that stated the whole fee was payable if cancelled within 28 days. No timings for show were actually stated on contract.  One week before show, we discover act is only for 45 mins, not for a couple of hours as we believed.  Seems timings were not fully discussed.  We cancel. Are we still liable for payment of fee? We would never have signed contract if timings were known!

[andy hughes]

I would suggest that you are liable for full payment. the contract is designed for mutual protection - but specifically for the artist, who has probably had experience of short-term cancellations before. I think the responsibility for discussion of timings is also yours, so best to pay up and put it down to experience - or negotiate for an extention on the performance, if the artist is willing. Remember, he / she is due to get paid anyway, so you'll need to be nice.

[stoo_pid]

I'd have to agree with andy hughes.  We once booked a big band type act & when they arrived they had significantly less musicians than their publicity suggested (photos, posters, list of possible musicians & singers, etc).  We were prepared to cancel the show on the spot & sue them but a quick call to our lawyer confirmed that as no-one had specified the exact numbers of artistes in the contract then we would almost certainly be in trouble if we pulled the plug.

In the end we allowed the show to go ahead, voicing our objections very severely.  To cut a VERY long story short we witheld full payment, they sued us, we counter-sued them.  The judge actually agreed with both cases (in other words we didn't have to pay them any more money) but made us pay the court costs which was more than we owed them!  We also had our solicitor to pay as well, not to mention the amount of time & hassle it took just getting to a resolution plus all the refunds we had to give to a significant chunk of the audience.

After that we were very careful to include everything we could think of in our contract.  Which is why contracts get very long...

[stoo_pid]

Sorry, just to clarify a potentially mis-leading sentence in my post - we part-paid them in proportion to the size of the band & withheld the rest.  We didn't withhold all payment.

[billywhizz]

Just a thought.  I don't know what type of premises you run but, unless you have a public entertainment licence from your local authority you cannot provide entertainment to the public  If you have a pub, you can have up to 2 performers who sing live without the assistance of backing tapes.  What I am getting to is that, if their appearance would actually be against the law becasue you are not licensed for it, you would be able to cancel because no contract for an illegal activity could be enforced.   

[Johnamill]

Many thanks for those comments, seems like we've learned a valuable lesson.  We are a Social Club, we do have an entertainments licence, so no problems there.