A musician friend, part of the Joni-covering band Hejira, posed this question on FB.
… I’m delving into the world of carnets etc for a 3 gig trip to Ireland. The official advice from the excellent Musicians’ Union pages and the London Chamber of Commerce is get a carnet, as we’re travelling in a splitter van with 7 musicians and full backline. But tales from colleagues on the road say just drive over and show the border your contracts for the gigs. How risky is this strategy in Republic of Ireland? Anyone done it recently? Thanks for your collective wisdom!
Most replies from other friends of his suggest that if you’re travelling with all your gear, instruments etc. in the vehicle with you, you probably won’t need a carnet.
You’d only need a carnet if the gear etc. was in a separate truck or van.
But that word “probably” leaves room for quite a bit of doubt. And some possibility of disaster.
Another suggestion was to cross to NI initially and then head south, as border checks are much less strict on land crossings.
Anyone here with post-Brexit experience of Irish touring or can get information from someone who has?
You could try posting for advice in the music section of boards.ie
My understanding as a freight forwarder is you don’t need a carnet if you are only going to one other country. If you were going from Eire to another EU country you would need a carnet but if just returning to UK not needed.
I’d suggest asking @colin-h about this; he’s sufficiently connected to either know the exact score himself or certainly to know people who do so.
I feared that someone would call me into this. I have a couple of anecdotes, but not enough for a touring band to base a decision on. Most of my Ireland touring associates (from beyond the island) are at troubadour level – one car/van, gear inside with people. On one occasion, a troubadour posted on a couple of boxes of merchandise to me in case there was an issue bringing it by sea in the van. On that occasion, they would have got away with it. (Carnets concern bringing stuff that ‘could be sold’ – be it equipment or souvenir tote bags.)
A friend who ran events for an NI district council booked a large touring act (a sort of circus/theatre group) last year for price X – it turned out that the council, late in the day, were asked for X + Y because the touring act had been told by HM Customs in advance that they would need to pay for carnets to bring their gear over. From memory, the council would have had to throw in an unplanned extra thousand quid or thereabouts. Their gear was very specialised – bespoke stuff, designed for their tumbling or whatever they did, hardly anything that could be sold on. Nobody involved – my friend, the act – had expected this carnet dictat; the council got arsey about it… Eventually, with some appeals to reason, HMRC reversed the decision.
I doubt if any of that helps.
My mate has just come back from a European tour (including Ireland) so I asked him for you and this is what he said-
“My understanding is that officially a carnet is required, you may find that Irish customs are reasonable but that is unlikely to ever be written down or guaranteed.”
“You’re also dealing in that murky middle ground where if any bands have successfully done it they will not be those who are big enough to have freight agents.”
“And finally if you’re going to tour continental Europe then you need a carnet anyway, so may as well use it for Ireland too.”
To be fair the tours that he works on are huge bands playing arenas and festivals, so it is a different world, but I hope that’s helpful.