Couple of Comics.

[cdave]

The UK has recently changed it's immigration rules for artists. I think I first heard about when someone flying in from America with three paintings to sell to try and subsidise her trip to an arts festival was told to bin them or turn right around and get the next plane out (but my Google fu is failing me).

It seems that the creator of Piled Higher and Deeper was caught up in this.

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I have a twitter account. In roughly deceasing order mostly use it for reading, interacting, posting innane thoughts, and comics news. Given how many webcomics make a living from t-shirt sales, I have a tendancy to put my inane ideas in the form of #badtshirtidea tagged posts.

But this comic wins the bad tshirt idea game.

Comments

[offensive-mango.livejournal.com]

I have a t-shirt that says: "Women! You can't beat 'em!"

[cdave]

Ace :)

[the-magician.livejournal.com]

The visa rules have been published for ages, but some artists didn't check, and others assumed things hadn't changed and when they arrived at the Border Agency, that's when things went wrong ...
http://www.ukba.homeoffice.gov.uk/managingborders/managingmigration/businessandspecialvisitors/entertainervisitors/

The problem was the potential violation of
"do not intend to charge members of the public for services provided or goods received;"
(you can be paid to appear at a festival or event, or series of events, but you can't charge people yourself, or sell them CDs or artwork ... it is believed you can give a box of CDs to the festival organisers to sell on your behalf though, but be careful!)

One of my LJ friends is a folk music agent who brings in artists from Canada, Africa and elsewhere and so has done the paperwork to be a "sponsor" and pays the £400/year. This allows her to generate certificates of sponsorship so that the local clubs etc. don't each have to register and pay the fee, for one or two acts a year from abroad.

"Certificates of sponsorship in the creative sector
In the creative sector, sometimes a migrant is needed to perform a number of engagements at various venues. If you are sponsoring a single migrant, for example if you are an agent, and there is no more than a maximum of fourteen calendar days between each engagement, you can assign a single certificate of sponsorship to cover the whole period.

If the migrant is sponsored by the individual venues, producers or promoters, then it is still possible for each sponsor to assign a certificate of sponsorship to cover its own show.

These certificates of sponsorship must not overlap. If there is no more than a maximum of fourteen calendar days between each engagement, then permission to enter will be given to the migrant to cover the whole period. However, if there is a gap of more than fourteen calendar days between engagements in either of the scenario mentioned above, then migrant will have to leave the United Kingdom and apply for permission to enter again.

These certificates of sponsorship can include any rehearsal periods required. You must make sure that you assign certificates of sponsorship only for the period required. If we find on a visit that a certificate has been assigned wrongly, we will take appropriate action against you."