Over the past decade, club and music event promoters around Nottingham (and the UK), have used posters as a cost effective and direct way of advertising their events.

Whether it was big pasted posters that appeared anonymously overnight on disused buildings, stapled posters on wooden telegraph poles or cardboard poster boards tied on traffic lights, the Town and Country Planning Act 1990 defines these as illegal forms of advertising.

It seems that everybody from the lonely wandering promoter with their staple gun and a bag of photocopied posters, to the corporate postering company, had their own interpretation on the laws of advertising. As did the general public, who at least once or twice a year would be found by some "Fleet Street wannabe" journalist who would go on to sensationalise and misrepresent an issue they had little understanding of, creating further discord between the public, the council and the promoters.

The misconception held by so many people and quite often the focus in the seemingly annual Evening Post 'crackdown on fly posting', is that (leftfield music) promoters are all 'raking it in'. From my experience as a promoter in this city, most of them are just scraping by and are in it to push a genre of music that they are passionate about. 

In a city with plenty of derelict buildings it's also arguable that putting posters on them will not make them any less appealing to the eye. Posters advertising events that people might be nterested in is often better to look at than just another boarded up window.
 
There was a similar crackdown on events promoters and flyposters a few years ago in Liverpool, shortly after it had been named European Capital of Culture 2008. Within a few days a torrent of flyposters had appeared around the usual places in the city that simply read 'This Is Our Culture'.

What is overlooked is the great cultural and financial benefit such a diverse array of musical events brings to this city! The dedication and hard work of the promotion community over the years has gained Nottingham's club and gig scene the excellent reputation that it deserves, unlike the cheap booze and stag do culture that has dragged our good city through the dirt (and many a TV documentary).

The council's initial 'no tolerance' approach to postering and illegal advertising caused a big problems for promoters unable to afford other forms of advertising. The (hollow) threat from the council of on the spot fines and £1000 per poster was never actually met with action, probably due to the difficulty in pin-pointing the perpetrator. It certainly made those with long term ambitions in the city think twice about what they were doing though...

This all changed last year when a law was passed in Parliament that made it possible for fly-posterers to be given ASBO's (Anti-Social Behaviour Orders), and the council made it clear that a club could have their license revoked if their promotion was not kept legal. This included litter from flyering after events, outside universities or in the town! Although it remains to be seen if any legal action will be taken against offending promoters or venues, the threat has been made by the council and this time people have taken it more seriously than ever before.

So the council successfully enforces a ban on postering, and what does this result in? Obviously a cleaner city which is a good thing for everybody! However, promoting events has become more difficult and I would expect that this has had a negative effect on both the smaller and bigger venues and events in and across the city.

However, down to the hard work of a number of individuals it seems that the start of something positive is about to begin. After months of meetings, research and consultations (you know the usual approach!!), £10,000 worth of funding has been allocated to erect two poster hubs that will be there to inform the public of forthcoming events. This will create legal postering options for the promoters and venues. The two drums will be situated near the Old Angel in Hockley and near Trent University on Shakespeare Street.

The poster sites will be funded by the promoters who will be charged between £1.25 and £1.50 per week per poster. This will fund the maintenance of the sites by the council's Neighbourhood Services with any surplus going towards funding of further sites if the scheme proves to be a success. Similar schemes in other UK cities such as Leeds have proved a great success and have reduced the problems of illegal advertising. It is hoped that this scheme can be expanded in the future.

At a recent Nottingham Pub and Club Watch meeting, the poster sites were revealed and the hubs are to be hexagonal in shape, 2 A3 portrait posters wide and 4 high, with each holding 48 posters. It is hoped eventually that some kind of sponsorship might be found to fund the hubs further and expand the scheme. At the meeting 22 promoters agreed to the terms and conditions of the poster sites and many more are expected to commit in the next few weeks. The scheme is scheduled to begin in early 2005.

In summary, I would like to say that all too often the council gets criticised for its actions (or lack of) but this time it seems that the persistence of a few notable people (within the council and other organisations) have managed to cut through the abundance of red tape and forge a positive solution. Although this might only be a partial solution (I think more hubs will be required) this is a step in the right direction to legal advertising for those wanting to promote their events.

If anybody is interested in sponsoring this scheme then please contact Christine Shirt on christine.shirt@nottinghamcity.gov.uk

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