ALL LICENSED EVENTS ARE POSTPONED/CANCELLED FOR THE TIME BEING WHILE WE APPEAL AGAINST THE REVOKING OF OUR LICENSE. THERE WILL BE NO MUSIC, DANCING, FILMS OR BAR AT THE COMMON PLACE FOR THE TIME BEING, SORRY. 

Do you want to serve alcohol and have live music, DJs and dancing?

• You need a co-ordinator for your event. This is someone who is responsible for the building and the people in it. A co-ordinator needs to have had an induction, helped out at some similar events, and feel confident in running an event at the Common Place. You also need a sound engineer .

• Pick a date that’s free on the calendar , fill out a booking form an email it to This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .

• We’ll try to get back to you in a few days.

• Everyone who attends must be either a member or a guest of a member.

• The door charge is capped at £3 members or £4 guests unless your event has expenses that can't be covered at this price, please email bookings with what these are.

• It's free to book the venue, you take enough to cover your costs from the door charge, and money from the bar and café goes to the Common Place. There is a maintenance fee for using the PA - £40 bands/ £20 DJs

• The building capacity is 250 people.

• Licensing hours.

What you need to know

1. Ethos

2. Before you make a booking

3. Making a booking

4. What happens after I submit a booking proposal?

5. Membership

6. Money

7. Premises license and capacity

8. PA system

9. Duties on night and cleaning up

Ethos

The Common Place is run horizontally and voluntarily. By this we mean without leaders and hierarchies and by everyone for everyone. This means that door/bar/food prices are always as cheap as they can be so it’s more accessible to people with less cash. Nobody gets paid and nobody is making a profit from putting on events here. Take a look at ‘About the Common Place’ to find out more.

Before you make a booking

Before any event can be booked into the calendar, we need to know who will be the co-ordinator. The co-ordinator is someone who is confident in running an event at the Common Place and is responsible for looking after the building and the people in it. Please look at the task list to see what this involves.

If you want to hold an event, ideally you should be the co-ordinator. In some circumstances this may not be possible and we can try to find you a volunteer co-ordinator but there is no guarantee that someone will come forward. There are a few steps you need to take to become a co-ordinator:

• Come along to an induction. You will be shown around the building and told what you need to know about security, fire safety etc. Please try and print off an induction pack beforehand (butwe might have some spares) which should tell you everything you need to know. Inductions are normally fortnightly on a Thursday evening, (see calendar). Please email the bookings collective to let them know you’re coming This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

• Shadow at two similar events. Have a look at the calendar and contact the person who is down as the co-ordinator for each event, asking if you can volunteer at their event because you’re planning something similar yourself. Let the bookings collective know you’ve arranged this. Go along, watch what the co-ordinator does, help out and ask questions.

• Think about asking the co-ordinator and other volunteers if they’d like to help out at your event if it goes ahead. It’s good to have some more experienced volunteers at your first event.

Making a booking

Once you’ve done the above, pick a time and date that’s free on the calendar for your event. Fill out the booking form and send it back to us This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it

We won’t reserve a date in the calendar for you until you’ve completed these steps (or you’re already a co-ordinator). This is because we prefer to take bookings that we know will happen, otherwise the calendar gets filled up with ‘maybes’ that stop other events from happening.

What happens after I submit a booking proposal?

We will try to respond to your email in a few days. Here is what might happen next:

• We will give you a definite yes if we have no concerns about your proposal.

• We will give you a definite no if what you’ve proposed is clearly unsuitable.

• We might ask you for some more information about what you’re proposing.

• We might postpone making a decision until our next collective meeting.

• If you are asking for a regular (block) booking we will also need you to come to a Common Place general meeting (1^st and 3^rd Thursdays) to discuss it.

• If your proposal would interfere with another group’s use of the building we might suggest you discuss it with them.

• If you are asking us to find a co-ordinator for you we will make a provisional booking while we try to find someone. The provisional booking will stand for seven days, after which it will we cancelled unless someone has come forward.

Membership

Rather than an innapropriate pub-type license we have a private members club license. This means that:

• To come to any licensed event (with bar, dancing, recorded music, live music, films) you have to be a member and show your membership card.

• As a member you can sign in guests but only if you actually know them and are prepared to take responsibility for them.

• All members and guests must print and sign the relvant column in the signing-in book. You'll find this is the blue box on top of the mugs cupboard in the kitchen. Just look at the page for the last event to see how i's done. You should also be shown in your induction.

• To become a member people jus have to fill in a short form and put that and £2 in the wooden box to your right as you walk into the building.

• There are always forms on or near the box so you can come down and do this anytime when we're open (check the calendar), or you can download the form from here .

• It takes 48 hours for membership to become active so unfortunately you can't come to an event and become a member instantly.

• We are working on ways for people to submit their membership form via email, but it partly depends on having enough people in the membership collective!

Money

The Common Place does not have any capital. We are in a rented building and only just stay afloat. Most of our income comes from licensed events.

• If you are fundraising for a charity/non-profit organisation you get part of the door takings but otherwise only basic expenses and costs can be paid.

• Because the PA is expensive to run, we ask that you donate £20 for recorded music events or £40 for live music events to the PA fund.

• We don’t expect events to need to charge more than a maximum of £3 (£4 for guests) and so the door charge is capped at this. If you think you need to charge more, we need you to explain to us why.

• The instructions for cashing up are here.

Premises license and capacity

The capacity is 250.

Our license allows us to sell alcohol within the following hours:
Sunday               12pm - 12am
Mon- Thurs        6pm - 12pm
Fri                    6pm - 2am
Sat                   12pm - 2am

Our permitted live music hours are:
Mon, Tues, Weds         7pm - 12am
Fri and Sat                   7pm - 1am

PA system

We ask that the PA system is run by one of our sound engineers or someone we know to be competent. You can arrange this in the following ways:

• If you know someone who has done the sound here before, ask them.

• If you know someone who would like to do the sound but hasn't done it here before, email us to arrange for them to help an existing cp sound engineer.

• As a last resort, ask the bookings collective to put out a call for help (we keep a list).

Duties on night and cleaning up

Take a look at the list of tasks that need doing at an event. The co-ordinator of an event is responsible for ensuring that the building is left in a way that means the next group to use it won't have to do any cleaning or tidying up first! You need to make sure you've got people to help you do this.