# Martyn's Law for Markets, Festivals and Community Events

> Martyn's Law starts in spring 2027. Which markets, festivals and community events are in scope, what the 200 and 800 thresholds mean, and what to do.

- Published: 2026-11-02
- Categories: event-event managers, market-managers
- Tags: Martyn's Law, event safety, UK, compliance
- Canonical: https://localstalls.com/uk/blog/martyns-law-for-markets-festivals-and-community-events/

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Martyn's Law is the name everyone uses for the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. It received Royal Assent on 3 April 2025 and is expected to come into force in spring 2027, after an implementation period of at least two years. From that point, anyone responsible for a venue or event above a certain size has legal duties to prepare for a terrorist attack, and a new regulator inside the Security Industry Authority (SIA) will check that they have.

If you run a market, a festival, a show, a fun run or a village event, you have probably already wondered whether it applies to you. This guide answers that, in the order you will need it: does it apply, which tier are you in, what you have to do, and what to do now.

**A note before you start.** This is a plain-language guide for event managers, not legal advice. The law is written and the statutory guidance was published on 15 April 2026, but the SIA's own guidance is still in draft and the start date has not been fixed. Where something is not settled yet, we say so.

## Does Martyn's Law apply to your event?

The Act covers two things: **premises** (buildings and the land around them, used for things like shops, restaurants, theatres, halls and stadiums) and **events**. Most outdoor markets and festivals are not premises in the Act's sense, because there is no building. They can still be caught as **qualifying events**.

An event is a qualifying event when all of these are true:

1. It takes place somewhere that is not already an enhanced-tier premises (a 800+ venue has its own duties; an event inside it is covered by them).
2. The public can get in.
3. There is a **condition of entry that is checked**: people have paid, hold a ticket or pass, or are members or guests of a club or similar body, and someone checks that at the entrance.
4. It is reasonable to expect **800 or more people at the same time** at some point during the event. Staff, stewards and traders count.
5. It is not on the short list of excluded premises (places of worship, schools, childcare settings, Parliament, transport security areas).

The condition that decides most outdoor events is number three. **A free, open-access event with no entry checks is not a qualifying event, however big it is.** A Saturday street market where anyone can wander in is outside the event rules. A ticketed food festival in the same square, with wristbands checked at a gate, is inside them once it can reach 800 people.

Two things follow from that, and both matter for how you plan:

- If you are deciding whether to ticket or fence an event that will draw 800 or more, you are also deciding whether Martyn's Law applies to it. That is not a reason to leave an event unticketed; it is a reason to plan for the duties if you do.
- An indoor event is different. A hall, marquee complex or exhibition centre that can hold 200 or more people is usually in scope as **premises**, and the duties fall on whoever controls it for the event. If you hire a hall for a craft fair, check with the venue who is taking responsibility for the day.

## The two tiers

| | Standard tier | Enhanced tier |
|---|---|---|
| **Who** | Premises where 200 to 799 people may be present at once | Premises where 800 or more may be present at once, **and every qualifying event** |
| **Core duty** | Notify the SIA; have public protection procedures in place | Everything in the standard tier, plus protection measures, documentation and a named senior person |
| **Typical examples** | A community hall, a village church used for a concert, a small indoor market | A ticketed festival, a large agricultural show with gate entry, an arena |

Qualifying events are always enhanced tier. There is no standard-tier event: an event is either outside the Act (under 800, or no entry checks) or in the enhanced tier.

The number is the number of people who may **reasonably be expected** to be present at the same time, at the busiest point, including everyone working there. You can base it on your fire safety occupancy figure, on attendance records from previous years, or on any other justified calculation. Write the method down; the regulator will want to see how you arrived at it.

## What you have to do

### Everyone in scope: procedures and notification

**Notify the SIA** when you become responsible for a qualifying premises or event, and again when you stop. The SIA is building an online portal for this and plans to test it with volunteers from early 2027. Nothing can be notified until the Act is in force.

**Have public protection procedures in place**, so far as is reasonably practicable. These are the steps your people would follow if an attack happened at or near the event. The Act names four:

- **Evacuation** — getting people out, and where they go.
- **Invacuation** — bringing people inside or to a safer part of the site when leaving would be more dangerous.
- **Lockdown** — securing the site against someone trying to get in.
- **Communication** — how you tell staff, stewards and the public what to do, quickly and clearly.

For most event managers these are not new ideas. They are the emergency section of the Event Management Plan you already write for the council and the Safety Advisory Group, looked at through one more lens. The difference is that they now have to exist, be known by your stewards, and be reviewed.

### Enhanced tier: measures, a document and a named person

If your event is a qualifying event (or your premises can hold 800+), three more duties apply:

**Public protection measures.** Steps that reduce the chance of an attack succeeding and the harm if it does. The Act groups them as monitoring (watching the site and its surroundings), movement (how people enter, leave and move around), physical safety and security (barriers, vehicle mitigation, search regimes where justified) and the security of information (who knows your plans). What is "reasonably practicable" depends on your event; a 900-person food festival is not expected to do what a 50,000-person stadium does.

**A written document.** You must document your procedures and measures, with an assessment of how they reduce the risk of harm, and provide it to the SIA. The SIA has said it will publish templates before commencement. Until then, a well-structured counter-terrorism section in your Event Management Plan is the right place to build it.

**A senior individual.** If the responsible person is an organisation rather than a person, someone senior must be designated to ensure compliance. For a committee-run event, that is a named committee member, in writing.

### Who is the "responsible person"?

Whoever has control of the premises in connection with the event. For an event in a park, that is normally the event manager who booked the land, not the council that owns it. Responsibility cannot be transferred: you can hire a security company to run the stewarding and ask them for advice, but the legal duty stays with you.

## What happens if you don't

The SIA can inspect (normally with 72 hours' notice), require information, issue compliance notices with deadlines, and impose financial penalties. For failing to comply with a notice, the maximum penalty is £10,000 in the standard tier and the greater of £18 million or 5% of worldwide revenue in the enhanced tier, with daily penalties possible while a breach continues. Serious cases can be prosecuted. The SIA has said its approach will be to help people comply first; the penalties are for those who will not.

## What to do now

The duties do not bite until the Act is in force, but spring 2027 is one event season away and most event managers plan a year ahead. Reasonable steps this winter:

1. **Work out whether you are in scope**, event by event. Write down your expected peak numbers and how you calculated them, and whether entry is checked.
2. **Name the responsible person** and, for enhanced tier, the senior individual. Put it in your event documents.
3. **Read your existing emergency plan against the four procedures.** Most plans cover evacuation well, communication adequately, and invacuation and lockdown not at all. Fill the gaps.
4. **Brief your stewards.** Procedures that only exist on paper do not count. The free ACT Awareness e-learning from the police's ProtectUK service is a sensible baseline for anyone working an event.
5. **Talk to your council's events team and Safety Advisory Group.** Several councils have started adding a Martyn's Law section to their event guidance; many have not yet. Either way, the SAG will expect to see it in your Event Management Plan from 2027.
6. **Keep records.** The method for your numbers, the procedures, the briefing, the review date. That is what an inspection looks for.

You do not need to buy anything. The Home Office and the SIA have both said that no consultant, product or certification is required or endorsed. Be cautious of anyone selling "Martyn's Law compliance" as a package.

## What this means for a typical event manager

A few worked examples, using the thresholds as written:

- **Weekly farmers' market in a town square, free entry, 1,200 visitors across the morning, perhaps 300 at any one time.** Not a qualifying event: no entry checks, and under 800 at once anyway. No Martyn's Law duties. Your usual event safety plan stands.
- **Ticketed one-day food festival in a park, wristbands checked at two gates, 2,500 tickets, around 1,500 on site at the peak.** Qualifying event, enhanced tier. Notify the SIA, have all four procedures, put proportionate measures in place, document them, name a senior person.
- **Village fete on the recreation ground, free entry, 900 people at the busiest hour.** Not a qualifying event, because there are no entry checks. If you decide to charge at a gate next year, it becomes one.
- **Craft fair in a hired community hall with a fire capacity of 250.** The hall is standard-tier premises. The hirer or the hall's management committee is the responsible person for the day, depending on the hire agreement; agree which before the event.
- **Christmas market in a shopping centre.** The centre is almost certainly enhanced-tier premises already; the market sits inside the centre's duties. Coordinate with the centre's management rather than notifying separately.

## How LocalStalls helps

Martyn's Law lands on the same event managers who already produce an Event Management Plan, a risk assessment and a site plan for the council. The LocalStalls permit pack builder drafts those documents from one interview about your event, and from 2027 it will include a Martyn's Law section: your tier, your responsible person, the four procedures written for your site, and the measures and assessment for enhanced-tier events, in a format the Safety Advisory Group recognises. Stewarding, security and medical requirements from the plan become specified requests to verified local suppliers.

If you organise events in the UK, start with the checker: tell us the council, the expected numbers and whether entry is checked, and it will tell you which tier you are in and what the council needs alongside it.

## Sources

- [Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025](https://www.legislation.gov.uk/ukpga/2025/13/contents) — the Act itself
- [Home Office — Martyn's Law factsheet](https://homeofficemedia.blog.gov.uk/martyns-law-factsheet/)
- [GOV.UK — Understanding Martyn's Law and the SIA's role as regulator](https://www.gov.uk/guidance/understanding-martyns-law-and-the-sias-role-as-regulator)
- [ProtectUK — Martyn's Law: scope for events (infographic)](https://www.protectuk.police.uk/sites/default/files/2026-02/CS%20NM%20Infographic%20Scope-%20Events%20%5BWEB%5D.pdf)
- [ProtectUK — The Responsible Person](https://www.protectuk.police.uk/sites/default/files/2026-04/Responsible%20Person.pdf)
- [Foot Anstey — Martyn's Law: an update following final statutory guidance](https://www.footanstey.com/our-insights/articles-news/martyns-law-an-update-following-final-statutory-guidance/)
- [Tandridge District Council — Martyn's Law: improving safety at public events](https://www.tandridgedc.gov.uk/Parks-play-and-things-to-do/Organise-an-event/Martyns-Law-improving-safety-at-public-events)
- [Stratford-on-Avon District Council — Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025](https://www.stratford.gov.uk/markets/terrorism-protection-of-premises-act-2025.cfm)

*Last reviewed 2 November 2026. The Act's commencement date and the SIA's final guidance had not been published at the time of writing; this page will be updated when they are.*