The decision-maker in a community hall is usually a volunteer board rather than a manager. That changes the timescale, the paperwork and what is actually negotiable.
Halls in community ownership
North London Venue Guide Halls in community ownership
North London is unusually rich in halls built by voluntary organisations between the 1880s and the 1930s: ex-servicemen's associations, temperance societies, missions, friendly societies, scout and guide groups, tenants' associations. Many are still standing and many are still hireable, often at rates well below commercial venues.
They are also the category most likely to catch out someone who has only dealt with commercial rooms.
Who actually decides
A commercial venue has a manager with authority to price and to sign. A community hall usually has a trustee board, a management committee or a parochial church council, and a volunteer booking secretary who administers rather than decides.
Consequences worth planning around. Unusual requests go to the next meeting, which may be monthly. The person answering the phone may genuinely not know whether alcohol is permitted, because the answer lives in a governing document nobody has read recently. And a decision can be reversed by the board if a trustee raises an objection, which is rare but not unknown.
Book earlier than you would with a commercial venue, and put anything unusual in writing early enough for a meeting cycle to absorb it.
What the governing document controls
Charitable halls hold their building on trusts that state the purposes for which it may be used. Those purposes are often drawn from a deed written a century ago, and they can restrict use in ways that have nothing to do with licensing.
Common restrictions: no political meetings, no religious use by other denominations, no commercial trading, priority to the founding organisation's own activities, and sometimes an outright prohibition on alcohol that no licence can override because it is a condition of the trust rather than of the licence.
This is the single most useful question to ask a community hall: is there anything in the trust deed or constitution that limits what the hall can be used for. A booking secretary who does not know will usually find out, and it is much better asked in week one.
Alcohol
Three arrangements exist and they are quite different.
The hall holds a premises licence covering alcohol sales, in which case you are in familiar territory. See licensing.
The hall holds no licence and alcohol may be brought and consumed but not sold. This is legal and common. It works for a private party where drink is free to guests. It does not work if you intend to take money at a bar, and a "suggested donation" for a drink is a sale in substance.
The hall requires a temporary event notice for any event with a bar, given either by the hall or by you. Establish which, and establish it early, because notice periods are statutory.
Condition and equipment
Halls vary enormously and the listing photographs are often old. Things worth checking on a viewing: the state and number of toilets, whether there is level access to them, kitchen equipment and whether it is a domestic or commercial fit-out, heating and whether it is on a timer you can control, the electrical supply at the stage end, table and chair stock and their actual condition, and whether there is anywhere to store your own equipment between setup and start.
Ask what the last hirer had to do at the end of the night. The answer describes the real clear-down obligation better than the agreement does.
Insurance and the hirer's obligations
Community halls are more likely than commercial venues to require hirers to carry their own public liability cover, and more likely to make the hirer responsible for stewarding, fire marshalling and clear-down. None of that is unreasonable for a building run by volunteers, but it is real work and it should be priced into your comparison with a commercial room. See hire agreements and costs.
Why they are worth the effort
Rates are lower, often substantially. Availability is better, particularly at weekends outside wedding season. The rooms tend to be genuinely private in a way that pub function rooms are not. And the money stays in a building that serves the area, which for a good many hirers is a reason in itself.
The trade is administrative friction in exchange for cost and control. For a wake, a christening, a community event or a party where you want to run your own bar and your own caterer, that trade is usually a good one.
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