Radius clauses: typical terms and fair limits

A radius clause keeps the artist from playing other public shows within a set distance of your show, for a set time before and after it. An announcement embargo sets when a show may be made public. Both protect the promoter’s ticket sales, and both cost the artist shows elsewhere. Both are worth keeping as small as the show allows.

What a radius clause protects

You spend weeks promoting a night. If the same artist plays a bigger club across town the weekend before, a good part of your crowd goes there instead. A radius clause prevents that.

For the artist, each extra kilometre and week can be a show they have to turn down, and the radius shapes their routing. In a dense region it can block several cities at once: 150 km around Vienna takes in Bratislava, Brno and, measured in a straight line, Graz.

Write down each part of the radius:

• Distance: kilometres from the venue, or named cities, regions or countries.
• Time: how long before and after the show.
• What counts: public shows only, or also private events, DJ sets in bars, livestreams and back-to-back sets, and under which of the artist’s names.

Announcement embargo

An announcement embargo fixes when a show may be made public. It works in two directions:

• The promoter doesn’t announce before a set date and time, for example because a festival announces the artist first, or because the agent wants to release a run of dates together.
• The artist doesn’t announce other shows in the radius before the promoter’s announcement, so your news isn’t buried under someone else’s.

Give the embargo a date, an hour and a time zone. “Not before Wednesday 12:00 Vienna time” leaves nothing to discuss. The embargo applies to the artist’s and the agency’s social media as much as to the promoter’s ticket shop.

Typical terms in Europe

These ranges are common in European club and festival booking. Every clause is negotiated, though, and many club shows have no radius at all.

A fee above what the artist usually gets justifies a wider radius, and so does an exclusive, such as the first show in the country or a stop on the album tour. For a small club, or a city where the artist plays several times a year, there’s a case for less.

How to agree a fair radius

Start from what the show actually needs. A 400-capacity club night needs its city kept clear for a few weeks, and nothing like a whole country for a season.

For promoters:

• Ask for the distance and time your crowd actually travels. If they come from the city, a city radius does the job.
• Protect the announcement as much as the date. An embargo on other announcements often matters more than a long period after the show.
• A wide or long radius costs the artist shows, so expect to pay for it in the fee.

For artists and their agents:

• Before you agree, list the shows already held or confirmed in the area, and name them as exceptions.
• Keep the period after the show short, because by then the promoter’s tickets are sold.
• Say which names the clause covers. An alias with a different audience can be an exception, or not; decide it now.
• Ask for a consent clause: other shows in the radius with the promoter’s written consent, which isn’t refused without reason and is answered within a set time.

Say a 700-capacity club in Vienna books [Artist A] for a Saturday in November. A fair clause reads: no public shows within 100 km of the venue, measured in a straight line, from six weeks before to four weeks after the show. No announcement of another show in that area before the club’s own announcement. The festival in Bratislava two weeks after the show, already confirmed and 55 km away, is named as an exception. Private events without public promotion don’t count.

Write the radius with dates, a distance and the names it covers. A clause that only says “exclusive in the region” will be read two different ways.

Festivals, afterparties and streams

A festival radius can swallow exactly the club shows that make the trip worth it for the artist. There are two common ways round it.

• The official afterparty. Many festivals allow a club show they promote or co-promote, often on the same night. Name it in the clause.
• A different market. A festival may not mind a club show across the border, even within the distance. Name the place rather than relying on kilometres.

Livestreams and recorded sets are newer ground. A set streamed from a studio sells no tickets in your city. A stream from the floor of the club down the road might. If it matters to you, write it in.

When two shows clash

If a clash turns up after the contract is signed, raise it before either show is announced. Moving an announcement, or keeping the other show quiet until yours has sold, often solves it without anyone breaking the contract. Once the clash is on two flyers, it’s much harder to fix.

What to put in the contract

• the distance and how it’s measured: straight line from the venue, by road, or named places
• the dates the radius starts and ends, not only “six weeks”
• what counts: public, ticketed or promoted shows; DJ and live sets; back-to-back sets; livestreams; which names
• the exceptions known today, with city and date
• the announcement embargo with date, hour and time zone, and who may announce what afterwards
• how to ask for consent, and how quickly it’s answered
• what follows a breach, if anything, kept in proportion to the show

The radius belongs in the offer already, so nobody discovers it for the first time in the performance contract.

Where the law comes in

A radius clause is a contract term and binds only the people who signed it. The ranges above describe what’s common; they say nothing about what a court would uphold. Very wide or long clauses, especially at large festivals, can raise competition-law questions. If a clause would block a large part of an artist’s season, get legal advice before signing.