PAT testing for bands: what venues actually ask for, and how to keep the records

If you play weddings and corporate events in the UK, sooner or later a venue manager or an agency will ask the question: is your equipment PAT tested? More and more of them will not take "yes" for an answer. They want to see the records, and they want them before the date, not on the night.

This is a guide to what that actually means for a band, what the people asking are looking for, and how to keep the paperwork in a state where the answer is always a two-minute job rather than a scramble.

What PAT is, and what it is not

PAT stands for portable appliance testing. It is the routine inspection and testing of electrical equipment that plugs in: your PA, your lighting rig, backline amps, keyboard power supplies, extension leads, the lot.

Two things worth knowing before anything else:

• There is no law that says "you must PAT test every year". The Electricity at Work Regulations 1989 require electrical equipment used at work to be maintained so that it is safe. How you do that is up to you. Testing is the accepted way of proving it, and the IET Code of Practice sets out how.
• "PAT tested" is shorthand for a record. The sticker on the plug means nothing on its own. What matters is the record behind it: what was tested, when, by whom, and whether it passed. That record is what a venue is really asking for.

So the question is not "have you paid someone to put stickers on" but "can you show that every piece of kit you bring in has been looked at, and when it is next due".

What venues and agencies ask for

In practice, the request comes in three shapes.

A tick box on a booking form. Many venues include "all electrical equipment is PAT tested" in their supplier terms. Signing the contract is your declaration. If something goes wrong, they will want to see that you meant it.

A certificate before the date. The bigger wedding venues and most corporate event companies ask for a copy of the PAT certificate along with your public liability insurance, usually a few weeks before the event. Some will not release the final details of the day until they have both.

Agency compliance. The larger UK function-band agencies require current PAT records and PLI before they will put an act on their books, and they chase for renewals. If your certificate lapses, you can find yourself quietly dropped from the shortlist for enquiries.

What they want to see is not complicated. A PAT certificate, or register, should show:

• who did the testing, and the date;
• each appliance, identified so it can be matched to the physical item (a number on a label is the usual way);
• the result for each item, pass or fail;
• when the next test is due.

A one-line "all equipment tested, dated, signed" letter is better than nothing, but a proper per-item register is what the careful venues expect, and it is the only version that helps you when a single item fails.

How often gear should be retested

There is no fixed legal interval. The IET's guidance is risk-based: how the equipment is used, how often it is moved, and where. Band gear scores badly on all three. It gets carried, dropped, unplugged in the dark, rained on outside marquees and plugged into whatever socket the venue has. For that reason most testers, and most venues, work on twelve months for a gigging band's kit, with a visual check before every use. That is what venues ask for, not the law: HSE's own leaflet for entertainers (INDG247) says testing every month is a reasonable starting point until a risk assessment settles the interval for your kit, and the user check before each gig is the part it cares about most.

Some items deserve a closer look more often than that:

• extension leads and IEC power cables, which fail more than anything else;
• anything that has been dropped, or has a plug that has been stood on;
• gear that has been hired out or lent to a dep for a stretch.

The visual check is not a formality. A cracked plug, a cable with the outer sheath split, a scorched socket on a power strip. These are exactly the things a formal test six months ago will not tell you about.

Getting the testing done

You have two honest options.

Pay a tester. Mobile PAT testers will come to a rehearsal room or a lock-up and work through a rig in an hour or two. Prices vary by region and by the number of items; expect a small call-out plus a per-item rate, with a discount once you are past a few dozen items. Ask for the register as a spreadsheet or PDF, not just the stickers.

Do it yourself. A competent person can carry out PAT testing with a proper tester and some training. For a band this is usually the one member who already looks after the PA. The equipment costs a few hundred pounds, and a one-day course covers what you need. The advantage is that you can test a new purchase, or a cable you are not sure about, the week you get it rather than waiting for the annual visit. The disadvantage is that you now own the paperwork, and it is the paperwork that most bands fall down on.

Either way, keep the register somewhere everyone in the band can find it, because the person who gets the email from the venue is rarely the person who has the certificate.

Keeping the records so the question is never a scramble

This is the part nobody talks about, and it is the part that causes the trouble. The test is done once a year. The requests come all year round, from different people, to different members of the band, usually while somebody is at work.

A good register has one line per item and answers four questions at a glance: what is it, what is its number, when was it last tested, when is it next due. Keep it as a living list, not a photo of a certificate:

• number every item with a durable label, and use the same number in the register;
• record the test date and the due date, not just "tested";
• note who owns each piece, because band gear is usually a mix of one person's PA and everyone's own amps;
• when something fails, mark it, take it out of the rig, and record what happened to it;
• when you buy something new, add it straight away, untested, so it is on the list to be done.

Then put a reminder against the earliest due date. Most lapses are not carelessness; they are a certificate that quietly expired in February while the band was busy.

We have made that register, so you do not have to. It has the columns above already in it: an Excel file with thirty numbered rows, two example lines and the rules on a second sheet, and the same thing as a printable A4 sheet for the lock-up wall. Free, nothing to fill in first, no sign-up. Download the register (Excel or PDF).

If you would rather not build that in a spreadsheet, this is what the gear section in Event Band Manager does: every piece of kit has an owner and a number, PAT and other deadlines have their own categories with due dates, the certificate files live against the check that produced them, and the band gets a warning before anything runs out. But the spreadsheet version works too. The point is to have the register, keep it current, and know where it is. A band management app has the edge of keeping the register beside the gigs it is needed for.

A short checklist

Before the next enquiry asks, make sure you can say yes to all of these:

1. Every plug-in item in the rig has a number on it.
2. There is a register listing every number, its last test and its next due date.
3. The register says who tested it.
4. Failed or retired items are marked as such, not deleted.
5. Somebody has a reminder for the earliest due date.
6. The certificate and the PLI document are both saved where any member can send them.

Do that once and "is your equipment PAT tested?" stops being a question you dread.

The quickest way to get to that point is to start from a register that already has the right columns in it. Ours is free, in Excel and as a printable sheet, with the eight rules on it: download the register (Excel or PDF).

Is PAT testing changing its name?

Partly, on paper. The document testers work to is the IET's Code of Practice for In-service Inspection and Testing of Electrical Equipment, now in its fifth edition (2020). The IET's own summary of that edition says it makes no mention of the words "portable" and "appliance" outside the preface, because the point is whether a piece of equipment is safe to keep using, however it is built or moved. The same edition dropped the old table of suggested retest intervals and, in the IET's words, gives advice on how to do a risk assessment to set them instead. It also allows that some double-insulated (Class II) items may need only a visual inspection rather than a test.

What did not change is everything a band actually deals with. HSE's own guidance still calls it portable appliance testing, testers still sell it as PAT, and venues still write "PAT tested" in their supplier terms. The law underneath it is the same Electricity at Work Regulations 1989, and the record a venue asks for is the same record: what was checked, by whom, when, the result and when it is next due. If a tester's paperwork says "in-service inspection and testing" rather than PAT, it is the same thing, and it answers the same question.

What fails a test

Most failures are visible long before anyone plugs in a tester. HSE's leaflet Electrical safety for entertainers has a checklist written for exactly this kind of kit, and its guidance on maintaining portable equipment lists what a user and an inspector look for. Between them, the usual reasons an item fails are:

• Damaged flex. Cuts, splits, fraying, crush damage, bulges or kinks in a mains lead, or the coloured inner insulation showing anywhere along it.
• Taped joints. A lead joined or patched with insulating tape is a fail, not a repair.
• Missing strain relief. The cord grip at the plug or connector should clamp the cable's outer sheath. If the coloured inner wires are visible where the cable enters, the grip is not doing its job.
• Cracked plugs and connectors. A broken casing on a plug, an IEC connector or the equipment's own inlet, or bent pins.
• The wrong fuse. A fuse rated for something else, or, worse, a piece of wire or foil doing a fuse's job. HSE is blunt about that last one: never.
• Signs of heat or water. Burn marks or staining on a plug, lead or case, or gear that has been stored or used somewhere wet.
• Loose parts and damaged cases. Loose screws, rattles inside, holes near the mains cable or switches.
• Earth continuity. The one a visual check cannot find. HSE's entertainers leaflet says testing detects "the faults that cannot be seen at inspection, such as lack of continuous earth", and its maintenance guidance recommends a test for earthed (Class I) equipment for exactly that reason.

HSE also makes a point worth pinning to the lock-up wall: a test only shows the item was safe at the time of the test. The check you do before each gig is still the one that catches the lead somebody stood on last Saturday. An item that fails, or that trips an RCD, comes out of the rig until someone competent has repaired or replaced it.

Who is exempt, and what a venue can still ask for

Strictly, nobody is exempt, because there was never a legal duty to PAT test in the first place. HSE's answer is that the Electricity at Work Regulations do not make inspection or testing a legal requirement, or require it annually: the law requires equipment that could cause danger to be maintained so that it is safe, and leaves the how and how often to you. The same page says there is no legal requirement to label tested equipment or to keep records, and that new equipment should be supplied safe and not need a formal inspection or test.

What varies is which check is the right one. HSE's guidance is that double-insulated (Class II) equipment will not need a test, though user checks and visual inspections still matter because the casing is the safety feature; earthed (Class I) equipment is where a test earns its keep. A band's rig usually has both.

None of that stops a venue asking. HSE's guidance gives a business joint responsibility for equipment a contractor provides for the business's own staff to use, but not for equipment a contractor both provides and uses, which describes a band's rig exactly. The rig is yours to keep safe, and that is why the venue wants to see your evidence rather than take it on trust. And a venue's supplier terms are its own. If the booking form says the equipment is PAT tested and you sign it, the record is what you have agreed to produce, whatever the regulations would have let you get away with. The practical answer is the same as it always was: keep the register, and send it.

Insurance and the venue's duty

The other document venues ask for alongside the PAT record is public liability insurance. The government's business guidance describes it as cover against claims that a member of the public was injured, or their property was damaged, because of your business activities, and names venues or clients that require it in a contract as one reason to hold it. The same page says it is employers' liability insurance that you are legally required to have if people work for you. Which policy a band needs, and whether each member needs their own, is a question for a broker with your details in front of them, not for a blog post.

What is worth doing is reading your policy's wording once with this post beside it. If it says anything about the condition or maintenance of your equipment, that is where it says it, and your register is how you would show you met it.

The venue has its side too. The sockets, the distribution board and the wiring behind them are the building's installation, not your rig. HSE's entertainers leaflet tells performers to check with the person responsible for the premises whether the circuits you are plugging into are RCD protected, and to use an RCD plug or adapter if they are not or nobody is sure. It is a two-minute question at load-in, and it belongs on the day sheet next to the parking. The same leaflet has the line every band should take to heart: do not rely on other people's equipment being in a safe condition or properly connected. Check before you use it.