Music Licence for Events & Festivals

Whenever music is performed in public the songwriter and their publisher may be entitled to a payment or royalty.  We need your setlist in order to pay the royalties to the rightsholders whose works were performed at this event. For certain events we collect setlists directly (rather than via a Performance Report) so that we can directly distribute the licence fees. These Directly Distributable Events are paid out at a different rate than other OneMusic licence payments and may attract higher licence fees.

What is the benefit of submitting a setlist that has been requested? The royalty due to the original songwriters from these events can often be higher than payments from submitting a Performance Report (previously Live Performance Return or ‘LPR’).

Submitting a setlist directly to a Promoter or via the unique QR Code provided, is not the same as submitting a Performance Report (previously Live Performance Return or ‘LPR’). A Performance Report is an online form submitted to APRA AMCOS, which reports details of your live performances at venues in Australia and New Zealand. They generally cover ‘non-promoted’ shows such as a regular gig at a pub, bar or restaurant. Performance Reports must be submitted by logging into the member portal on the APRA AMCOS website or via the Member app. The events we are requesting your setlist for, however, fall under what we call a Distributable Event which are usually large-scale promoted concerts/festivals/events where APRA licenses the event directly with the Promoter.

Major Festivals, Tours Promoted by a National Event Promoter and other Promoted Events are directly distributed. Make sure you provide the Promoter with the setlist for the tour (this can be one setlist for the entire tour or can be a different setlist for each night). Other larger events and organisations also submit setlist for direct payments such as the State Symphony orchestras. If you are asked for a setlist by a promoter or event organiser, it probably means the event will be directly distributed.

‘Non-promoted’ shows such as a regular gig at a pub or a show booked directly by the artist.