Auto-Approval for Stage Licences: How to Set Rules That Don't Burn You

Most licence requests are routine. A community theatre wants a familiar play, a small venue, a flat amateur fee. Reviewing every one of those by hand wastes time you'd rather spend on the genuinely interesting requests — the touring producer with a non-standard fee structure, the festival asking for a rare exclusivity window, the school with an unusual cast adaptation. Auto-approval, configured properly, takes routine requests off your desk and turns them around in minutes instead of days.

The principle behind safe auto-approval

Auto-approval should match the criteria you'd approve manually 100% of the time without thinking. If you ever hesitate when reviewing those requests, the rule isn't tight enough. Start strict, watch what slips through, then widen — never the other way around.

Safe auto-approve criteria

• Performance type = amateur (professional licences should always be reviewed)
• Venue capacity ≤ a tier threshold — 400 is a common safe ceiling for community theatre
• Territory falls inside your default licensable list
• Producer's compliance documents (insurance, ABN, school accreditation) are verified and current
• No active blackout overlapping the requested dates
• No nearby exclusivity window for a professional production
• Standard contract template applies — no clauses to negotiate

Triggers that should always go to manual review

• First-time producer with no licence history on the platform
• Requests for alterations: cuts, transpositions, gender swap, language change
• Professional productions of any kind
• Venue capacity above your tier threshold
• Tour or multi-venue runs
• Requests for livestream, recording, or film rights
• Schools applying outside their accredited region

What auto-approval does the moment a request matches

The platform generates the licence quote from your pricing rules, issues a contract from your template (with all variables snapshotted), notifies the producer to sign and pay, and posts a summary into your approvals queue so you have full visibility. You can always intervene — open the licence, adjust terms, or cancel before payment without penalty.

Reviewing your rules

Look at your auto-approval log monthly. If you find yourself wishing you'd seen a request before it was approved, tighten the rule. If a high proportion of manual reviews end in a plain approval anyway, loosen it. The goal is to spend your team's time only on the requests that actually need a human.