Ghanaian artistes can earn fees at 72 named UK festivals through the Standard Visitor route. These performances require neither a work permit nor a Certificate of Sponsorship.
The names are set out in the Permit Free Festival List of the Immigration Rules. Paragraph PFF1 says an artist, entertainer or musician who visits the UK to perform at one or more of them may receive payment for doing so.
Holders of a Ghanaian passport are on the visa national list, so they need that visa before they fly. A contract shows why you are going.
The visa is a separate decision, and it can be refused.
What you are allowed to do, and to be paid for
Under the permitted activities for visitors, an artist, entertainer or musician may perform, attend rehearsals, take part in competitions or auditions, make personal appearances and do promotional work. They may also play one or more festivals on the permit-free list.
The person who may take a fee from a UK source for the show is the artist, entertainer or musician. A visitor still cannot take a job, fill a role in a UK organisation, or do work the rules do not allow.
A Standard Visitor visa for up to six months costs £127. The earliest you can apply is three months before you travel, and you give fingerprints and a photo at a visa application centre.
The fee is not refunded if the application is refused, or if you are given a shorter visa than you asked for.
Artistes who return often can apply for a long-term visitor visa of two, five or 10 years. Each stay is still normally capped at six months.
The officer has to be satisfied that you will leave at the end and that repeated trips will not make the UK your main home.
Your visit must fit the rules, and you must be able to pay without public funds. Someone else may cover costs only if they have a genuine relationship with you and can actually provide the money.
A visit of six months or less, applied for from outside the UK, does not carry the immigration health surcharge.
The 72 festivals
The rules list these festivals:
- Africa Oye
- Aldeburgh Festival
- All Points East
- American Express presents BST Hyde Park
- Barbican Festivals – Live from the Barbican
- Belfast International Arts Festival
- Belsonic
- Big Church Festival
- Birmingham Hippodrome Festivals & Sites
- Birmingham Jazz & Blues Festival
- Boomtown Festival
- Bradford Literature Festival
- Breakin' Convention
- Brighton Festival
- Brighton Fringe
- Cambridge Folk Festival
- Camden Fringe
- Camp Bestival Dorset
- Celtic Connections
- Cheltenham Festivals (Jazz, Science, Music & Literature Festivals)
- Cornwall International Male Choral Festival
- Creamfields
- C2C: Country to Country Festival
- Dance Umbrella
- Download
- Durham BRASS Festival
- Edinburgh Festival Fringe
- Edinburgh International Book Festival
- Edinburgh International Children's Festival
- Edinburgh International Festival
- Edinburgh International Jazz and Blues Festival
- Emerge Belfast
- End of the Road Festival
- Fierce Festival Ltd
- Flamenco Festival at Sadler's Wells Theatre
- Freedom Festival Arts Trust
- Garsington Opera
- Glasgow International Jazz Festival
- Global Streets
- Glyndebourne
- Greenbelt
- Greenwich and Docklands International Festival
- Green Man
- Harrogate International Festivals
- Hay Festival Foundation Ltd
- Huddersfield Contemporary Music Festival
- Hyde Park Winter Wonderland
- Isle of Wight Festival
- Latitude
- Leeds Festival
- Llangollen International Musical Eisteddfod
- Love Supreme
- Meltdown (Southbank Centre)
- Norfolk & Norwich Festival
- Out There Festival
- Parklife
- Reading Festival
- Shubbak
- Sonica
- Southbank Centre Festivals & Series
- Stockton International Riverside Festival (SIRF)
- Summer at Snape
- Terminal
- The EFG London Jazz Festival
- The Great Escape Festival
- The Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo
- The Warehouse Project
- We Out Here
- Wilderness
- Wireless Festival
- WOMAD
- WWE Live
Out There Festival and Parklife are separate lines. Music names on the list include Wireless, WOMAD, We Out Here, Africa Oye, Reading, Leeds, Download, Creamfields, Love Supreme, All Points East and The Great Escape.
Literature and theatre run from Hay Festival Foundation Ltd and the Edinburgh Festival Fringe to the Bradford Literature Festival and the Royal Edinburgh Military Tattoo.
Ghana's festival calendar is a different circuit. Traditional councils set the dates, and they move, from Fao in January to Feok in December.
A legal UK fee does not change what Rex Omar, board chairman of the Ghana Music Rights Organisation, told Joy Prime on Friday, February 6. "I can tell you that 97% of Ghanaian musicians are not making money," he said.
One listed festival is one booking, and only if the visa is granted.
What your team can and cannot do
Personal or technical staff, and members of the production team, may support those activities if they attend the same event and are employed to work for the artiste outside the UK.
Each person has to qualify as a visitor alone. The rule that allows a UK fee names the artist, entertainer or musician at a permit-free festival.
Crew who are already employed and paid outside the UK have to remain so. Reasonable travel and subsistence can be covered from a UK source.
A wage from the UK promoter is not that allowance.
A player or an engineer hired in Britain for the show sits outside this staff rule.
If the show is not on the list
Festivals on the list can invite artistes without issuing a Certificate of Sponsorship under the points-based system. If the date is not listed, that sponsorship is the route organisers are expected to use.
Established professionals have a second visitor option. A permitted paid engagement lets a professional artist, entertainer or musician, aged 18 or over, be paid for work that relates directly to their profession, including a performance.
A UK creative organisation, agent or broadcaster has to send the invitation. The engagement must be arranged before travel, declared in the application, and backed by that invitation.
It has to be finished within 30 days of entry, even if the visa runs for up to six months.
You show that you are established with publicity for recent performances, or with coverage and reviews. A first booking with no paper trail is a hard case on this route.
Organisers who want a place on the list for events between April 2027 and April 2028 must apply by 29 January 2027.
A festival that is not already listed has to have run for at least three years. It must have booked at least 15 non-British or Irish performers at each of the last three editions, with the same number invited again.
The Home Office publishes the inbox and the evidence list on its permit-free festival applications page.
FAQ
Can I travel because Wireless booked me?
Wireless Festival is on the list, so a paid performance there can fit a Standard Visitor visa. You still have to be granted the visa.
The booking is evidence of the purpose. It is not permission to enter.
Can my manager and my drummer take a fee from the UK promoter?
The UK-pay rule names the artist, entertainer or musician. Staff may come for the same event if the artiste employs them outside the UK.
Their wage stays outside the UK. Reasonable travel and subsistence is the UK payment the rules allow them.
Can one visa cover several of these festivals?
PFF1 says one or more of the listed festivals. The stay is still a visit, usually up to six months, and you have to leave at the end.
What about a club date the same week?
A club that is not on the list is outside the festival pay rule. An established professional may fit a permitted paid engagement, done within 30 days of entry, with a formal invitation from a UK creative organisation, agent or broadcaster.
Other paid work needs a sponsor.
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