What Your Performance Licence Actually Covers (and How It Shapes Your Marketing)

Always read the small print before you print the poster

We get asked a version of the same question most years, usually a few weeks after a group has booked: "can we put this on the poster?" It's a fair question. A Performance Licence isn't just a piece of paper that lets you put a show on, it also sets out what you can and can't do while you're telling the world about it. Most of it is straightforward, but a few points genuinely catch groups out, and getting them wrong can mean a licence being reviewed, so it's worth five minutes before the artwork goes to print.

What the licence actually grants

A Performance Licence covers a specific production: the dates you've agreed, at the venue you've named, for the number of performances you've paid for. It's non-transferable and non-exclusive, so it can't be handed to another group or reused for a different run without a new agreement. If you decide partway through planning to add an extra performance, that needs to be arranged and paid for before those additional tickets go on sale, not adjusted after the fact. Venue capacity, for licensing purposes, is based on the maximum seating the venue holds, not how many tickets you expect to sell, so it's worth confirming that figure with your venue early rather than assuming.

Crediting us on your marketing materials

Every piece of publicity, posters, programmes, and digital marketing alike, needs to credit Nick Lawrence Pantomimes somewhere on it. The good news is this is genuinely flexible. Any of the following works:

'[Pantomime Script Title]' by Nick Lawrence
'[Pantomime Script Title]' by Nick Lawrence Pantomimes
A Pantomime by Nick Lawrence
Written by Nick Lawrence

Pick whichever fits your design most naturally. There's no required size or placement, just make sure it's there.

Photography and video: the bit that trips people up

This is where most licensing questions actually come from. A Video or Audio Recording Licence is not automatically part of your Performance Licence, it has to be requested separately when you apply. Even once you have it, recording rights only cover the scripted dialogue itself (including any approved edits), and any songs or music in your production may need their own separate clearance, that's not something we can license on a composer's behalf. Recording Licences, when granted, are for private and rehearsal use only. Uploading or sharing a recording publicly, on YouTube, Facebook, or anywhere else, isn't covered, however tempting it is to share a highlight reel after a good run. If you're planning to record for archive purposes, we may ask for a copy on request, so it's worth keeping that in mind from the start rather than as an afterthought.

Making edits and what that means for your marketing copy

If you want to adjust the script, that requires the Editable Master Script (see our Fees page for pricing), provided as an editable Word document. Minor localisation, swapping in a local place name or topical reference, is fine and doesn't need our sign-off. Anything more substantial, a change that affects the plot or a later scene, or the inclusion of material that belongs to someone else's copyright, does need approval first. In practice, we're rarely precious about this: the two things we do actually push back on are changes that create knock-on plot problems, and third-party material used without the relevant permission. Everything short of that, we're generally happy to talk through. The reason this matters for marketing specifically is that your synopsis, programme notes, and any teaser copy should reflect what your audience will actually see, so keep your promotional wording aligned with whatever version of the script you end up performing.

A detail worth knowing the other way round

Something groups don't always realise: we may use your production photos, posters, or promotional material in our own marketing (on our website, for instance) unless you specifically ask us not to. It's a two-way relationship, your show helps show future groups what our scripts look like on stage, so if you'd rather we didn't, just let us know.

Timing: when to sort this relative to your marketing push

The practical order is licence first, marketing second. Your Performance Licence needs to be in place, contract signed and fees paid, before rehearsals begin in earnest, and that's also the point where you know your dates and venue are locked in, which is exactly what you need confirmed before posters go to print. If you haven't yet planned the marketing side of things, our guide to marketing your pantomime picks up from here.

Sorting the licensing detail early means nobody's reprinting posters in November because a credit line was missing or a recording ended up somewhere it shouldn't have. If anything here raises a question specific to your production, get in touch and we'll talk it through before you commit anything to print.

Ready to get your production moving? Request a free Perusal Script to read the full text, or head to our Performance Licences page if you've already chosen your script. You can browse the full range on our All Scripts page.