Martyn’s Law for Theatres: What You Need to Do
TL;DR
Theatres with 200 to 799 people on site at the same time (audience, cast, musicians, crew, front-of-house staff and volunteers, bar staff) fall under Martyn’s Law standard tier. Above 800, you’re into enhanced tier with a heavier set of duties. This guide covers standard tier. The harder questions for theatres are stage door access, touring companies who arrived this morning, and the foyer crush at interval. Below: capacity counting, key challenges, and a worked example for a 400-seat regional producing house.
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If your theatre regularly has between 200 and 799 people on site at the same time (audience, performers, musicians, backstage crew, front-of-house staff, ushers, bar staff, and volunteers combined), it falls under the standard tier of Martyn’s Law. Above 800 you’re into enhanced tier instead, which is a heavier set of duties beyond the scope of this guide. Standard tier needs procedures for evacuation, invacuation, lockdown, and communication. No equipment to buy. No physical changes to the building.
Most theatres already think hard about audience flow, fire procedures, and front-of-house management as part of their licensing and house operation. Martyn’s Law adds the bits those don’t usually cover: invacuation (sheltering people inside), lockdown (securing entry points like the stage door), and a communication plan for security incidents that’s separate from the fire alarm. The rest of this guide walks through what that looks like in practice for a theatre, including the parts that tend to get glossed over: the stage door on a side street, the visiting company that arrived this morning, and the foyer pinch at interval.
Does Martyn's Law Apply to Theatres?
Theatres fall under Entertainment and leisure (Schedule 1, paragraph 3) of the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025. If your theatre regularly has between 200 and 799 people present at the same time, it qualifies as a standard tier premises. At 800 or more, you're into enhanced tier instead, which carries a heavier set of duties.
Standard tier means two duties: notify the SIA that you are a qualifying premises, and put public protection procedures in place covering evacuation, invacuation, lockdown, and communication.
No physical alterations. No equipment to buy. No consultants to hire.
How to Work Out Your Theatre Capacity
Fixed seating makes the audience figure easy. Count every seat, then add cast, musicians, dressers, stage management, backstage crew, front-of-house staff, ushers, bar staff, box office, technicians, and any volunteers on shift.
A 400-seat producing house with a cast of 12, a band of 5, 8 backstage and crew, 12 FOH and bar, 2 box office, and 2 technicians lands at 441. A receiving house running a touring production is similar: the visiting company replaces the resident cast and crew, but the headcount sits in the same range.
The peak isn’t always curtain-up. Interval is often your highest concurrent occupancy in the foyer and bar areas, and a matinee-then-evening double-show day briefly puts two audiences in the building during the turnaround. Use the busiest realistic moment as your number, not a midweek average.
Not sure where you fall? Use our free capacity calculator to work it out.
Key Challenges for Theatres
Every theatre is different, but these are the issues that come up most often:
The stage door
Stage door is often the weakest link in a theatre. A single side-street entrance, sometimes staffed by one person, sometimes left unattended between calls. It’s the route the visiting company uses, the route deliveries come through, and the route a hostile actor would walk in by. Treat it as a primary lockdown point. The stage door keeper, if you have one, needs the same brief as your duty manager. The Power of Hello (a polite ‘hi, can I help?’) applied to anyone they don’t recognise is the simplest hostile reconnaissance check there is.
Touring companies who arrived this morning
If you’re a receiving house, your cast and crew change every week. The visiting stage manager and company manager walked into your building for the first time during the get-in. They don’t know your fire exits, never mind your invacuation areas. Add a single page on your evacuation, invacuation, lockdown, and communication procedures to the get-in pack every visiting company receives, and brief the visiting stage manager during the technical handover. Five minutes, slotted into the existing health and safety induction.
Volunteer ushers and high turnover
Plenty of regional and producing theatres run on volunteer ushers. They’re committed, they know the audience, and they’re often the only staff in the auditorium when the lights go down. Keep training simple: a laminated card at each position covering exits, the code word, and where to send people if the duty manager calls a shelter. A five-minute briefing when they sign in for their shift is reasonable. The Act explicitly covers volunteers, so they’re in scope, but the bar is awareness, not formal qualifications.
Stopping a live show
Many staffed theatres already rehearse show stops. Medical emergencies in the audience happen often enough that most houses with a stage manager have some form of stop procedure, even if it’s informal. If you do, add a security version: same trigger from whoever runs the show, same calm announcement, same house lights up if the building has them, but the front-of-house manager takes over audience direction instead of waiting for the medic. If you don’t already rehearse show stops, this is a good prompt to start. If the threat is inside, evacuate away from it. If the threat is outside, hold the audience in the auditorium and shelter. Don’t reach for the fire alarm. It pushes people towards a fire assembly point that might be exactly where you don’t want them.
The interval crush
At interval, 400 people leave the auditorium and pile into a foyer designed for slow-moving ticket holders. Bar, toilets, merchandise, smokers heading outside. It’s the highest concurrent occupancy of the night and often the tightest space in the building. If an incident lands during the interval bell, your shelter plan needs to handle people who are already standing, already moving, and already split across three or four small rooms. Move the foyer crowd back into the auditorium, where the walls are solid and the seats give cover.
Worked Example: Theatre Procedures
A 400-seat regional producing house with stalls and a circle, foyer with bar, box office, backstage with dressing rooms and a workshop, and a stage door on a side street. 35 staff, performers, and volunteers on a typical show night.
| Procedure | Implementation |
|---|---|
| Capacity | 435 (400 audience + 12 cast + 5 musicians + 8 backstage and crew + 6 FOH and ushers + 2 bar + 2 box office) |
| Evacuation | Front-of-house double doors to the high street; stalls fire exit to the side alley; circle fire exit via external staircase to the rear lane; stage door to the side street for backstage. The stage manager calls the show stop and brings up house lights. PA announcement giving clear directions. Ushers and front-of-house at each exit directing the audience away from the threat, not automatically to the nearest door. Assembly point: the car park behind the venue. |
| Invacuation | Auditorium stalls (solid walls, no external windows, fixed seats give cover). Circle if away from the foyer side. Backstage dressing rooms (interior, no external windows). Foyer and bar emptied: everyone moved into the auditorium. Bar shutters lowered. Box office window shuttered. Note: the safety curtain (the iron) is a fire device, not a counter-terrorism measure. Lower it if a fire-related risk demands it, but don’t rely on it for sheltering an audience. |
| Lockdown | Front-of-house doors locked by the duty manager (keys held in the box office); stalls fire exit secured from inside (push bars already prevent entry); circle fire exit bolted by the circle usher; stage door locked by the stage door keeper; workshop external door bolted by the duty electrician. House lights dimmed. PA announcement to the audience to stay seated. |
| Communication | Show comms (cans) connecting stage management, technical, and front-of-house. A pre-agreed code word for security incidents that doesn’t sound like a normal cue. Duty manager initiates the response and calls 999. PA announcement from the stage manager’s position or the duty manager’s office. Backstage briefed via the show relay to dressing rooms. If the show is mid-performance, performers told via stage management. |
| Training | Front-of-house and ushers briefed at the start of each run and when the team changes. Visiting companies briefed during the get-in (one page in the standard production pack). Printed procedure cards at each usher position, behind the bar, and at the stage door. Volunteer ushers given a one-page summary at sign-up and a quick verbal walk-through when they arrive for a shift. Annual walkthrough with the whole team. All staff and volunteers encouraged to complete ACT Awareness e-learning (free, 45 minutes). |
This is one example. Your procedures should reflect your specific building, layout, and circumstances. Read our full guide to public protection procedures for a detailed breakdown of what to include.
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If you have a stage manager calling the show from the prompt desk, they’re your single most useful person. In most staffed houses they already hold the comms and announce show stops for medical emergencies. A counter-terrorism show stop slots into a process they may already rehearse. Brief them once properly and they’ll run it the way they run everything else.
Stage door keepers are easy to forget. They sit at the entry that’s most likely to be tested by hostile reconnaissance. A short briefing, a printed card, and a working radio link to the duty manager covers most of what they need.
If you use volunteer ushers, keep it light and supportive. A laminated card at each position and a five-minute brief at sign-in is reasonable. They don’t need formal qualifications. The Act covers them as people who’ll implement procedures, so they’re in scope, but the bar is awareness.
The free ACT Awareness e-learning (45 minutes) is a good baseline for anyone who wants to go further. It covers recognising threats, suspicious items, and what to do during an attack.
Quick Checklist
- Work out your maximum capacity (audience + cast + crew + FOH + bar + ushers + volunteers at peak)
- Map all exit routes: front-of-house doors, stalls and circle fire exits, stage door, workshop and loading bay
- Treat the stage door as a primary lockdown point and brief whoever staffs it
- Add a one-page security summary to the get-in pack every visiting company receives
- Build a counter-terrorism show stop into the prompt book alongside the medical version
- Plan for the interval crush and identify how you’d move the foyer back into the auditorium
- Brief ushers, volunteers, bar, box office, and technical staff at the start of each run
- Run a walkthrough once a year with the whole team, including a visiting company if you can time it right
Getting Started
Compliance is not complicated. Here is what to do:
- Work out your capacity (try our free calculator). Under 200? You are not in scope.
- Write procedures for evacuation, invacuation, lockdown, and communication tailored to your theatre.
- Make sure your staff and volunteers know the procedures. Brief them, put up posters, hand out one-page summaries.
- Keep records of what you have done and who has been briefed.
- Review at least once a year.
You can do this yourself, or use Standard Tier to document your procedures in 10 minutes, set up a training portal your staff and volunteers can access on their phones whenever it suits them, and keep a digital audit trail without chasing signatures or filing paperwork.
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Frequently Asked Questions
Does Martyn’s Law apply to my theatre right now?
We’re a receiving house. Are we or the touring company the responsible person?
Does the safety curtain count as a counter-terrorism measure?
How do we train volunteer ushers without putting them through a course?
What about the stage door? It’s just one person on a side street.
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Standard Tier (2026). Martyn’s Law for Theatres: What You Need to Do. Available at: https://www.standardtier.co.uk/guide/martyns-law-for-theatres
Last reviewed: 8 June 2026. Based on the Act, the Home Office statutory guidance published on 15 April 2026, and the Home Office factsheets. Requirements may be refined as the SIA finalises its guidance.
This guide is general information about the Terrorism (Protection of Premises) Act 2025, not legal advice. Duties under the Act rest on the responsible person for each venue and cannot be transferred. If you're unsure how a specific requirement applies to your premises, take advice from a solicitor or qualified security adviser before acting on anything you read here.
Standard Tier is an independent platform and is not affiliated with the UK Home Office, the SIA, or any government body.