Report puts the cost of biased treatment of London’s Black and South Asian events at up to £141m a year
A new report on racial discrimination in music event licensing, policing and closures in London cites Form 696, Project Alpha and the Colour Factory.
Disproportionate restrictions and cancellations aimed at events run by Black and South Asian communities in London cost an estimated £127 million to £141 million a year. That estimate comes from a new report on racial discrimination in how music events in the capital are licensed, policed and shut down. Black Lives in Music and the Musicians’ Union partnered with the REMEL project (Race Equality in Music Event Licensing) on the research, Tsugi reported.
The framework is the Licensing Act 2003, which governs alcohol sales, entertainment and late-night food. To get a license, a venue must uphold and promote four objectives: preventing crime and disorder, public safety, preventing public nuisance, and protecting children from harm. Local councils decide who gets one.
The Metropolitan Police added its own layer in 2005 with Form 696, which was requested from all party organizers. It demanded performers’ real names, stage names, home addresses and phone numbers. The first version asked outright about the ethnic origin of the expected crowd, and later versions asked for the music style. Grime, R&B, garage and rap events were marginalized or banned as a result. The form was banned in 2017 over its racist effects.
In 2019 the Met and the Home Office launched Project Alpha, which targets gang violence and youth crime through large-scale social media monitoring. It works with online platforms to remove artistic content. In 2023, 60.7% of the music videos it took down featured Black artists. Rap, drill and other genres young people use to describe their lives are the main targets. One case is rapper Digga D, who under a Criminal Behaviour Order must notify police 24 hours before releasing any track or video, and submit the full lyrics for review.
The Colour Factory, an independent, inclusive club in Hackney, is among the cases cited. On Feb. 11, 2023, 26-year-old Trei Daley spent the evening there. After the club had closed, an argument broke out in Queen’s Yard, entirely outside the venue, and he was fatally stabbed. Police still used their emergency procedure to suspend the club’s license. Lost income and legal fees cost the venue £55,000.
Pop, indie and rock draw no particular scrutiny, while Afro-Caribbean and South Asian music is met with preventive suspicion. Many venues run by white operators get active support to reopen after major incidents, while spaces serving minority audiences face immediate punitive closures.
Promoters and emerging artists now have to pay for heavy security: biometric scans, walk-through arches, dog handlers. Production costs balloon, and independent organizers struggle to turn a profit. Some venues, afraid of losing their licenses, censor themselves or use white intermediaries to deal with the authorities. Combined with gentrification and the steady disappearance of party spaces, these pressures push minority scenes toward the edges of London.
The report calls for an overhaul of the licensing system, with transparent, fair procedures based only on concrete facts; detailed, disaggregated records from authorities on the kinds of events targeted, so inequalities can be tracked; and training on racial bias for police officers and local authority staff.
The full report is free to access.
