With border and immigration problems increasingly throwing spanners into touring works, the European Live Music Forum (ELMF) has launched an investigation into visa and work permit procedures in order to influence policy makers and administrators, and potentially establish an international working group.

“The increased challenges facing tour and concert organisers, artists, agents, managements and others when bringing international artists into Europe is a priority matter,” says the ELMF’s Hans Hjorth. “Complex visa processing, cynicism at consulates and slow procedures generate huge financial loses and great frustrations for the music sector and ultimately hamper cultural exchange.”

With border and immigration problems increasingly throwing spanners into touring works, the European Live Music Forum (ELMF) has launched an investigation into visa and work permit procedures in order to influence policy makers and administrators, and potentially establish an international working group.

“The increased challenges facing tour and concert organisers, artists, agents, managements and others when bringing international artists into Europe is a priority matter,” says the ELMF’s Hans Hjorth. “Complex visa processing, cynicism at consulates and slow procedures generate huge financial loses and great frustrations for the music sector and ultimately hamper cultural exchange.”

At the end of last year, the ELMF sent out a questionnaire, asking for specific case studies and examples of where visa issues had hindered musicians working. The next step is to analyse the results and identify “what problems exist and what measures need to be taken to resolve them, and what the priorities are.”

“Once we’ve publicised the results, we’ll be sending it to relevant parties including the EU,” Hjorth says. “We’ll be sharing it with organisations in the US such as the American Arts Alliance, and we hope to establish relationships with others such as the Musicians Union in the UK, and to form a coalition.”

The European Union has signed the Unesco Convention on Cultural Diversity which specifically calls for ‘adapting measures in developed countries with a view to facilitating access to their territory for cultural activities from developing countries’. “So the concept is already in place,” Hjorth says. “This is about trying to make it concrete.”