Music on your christmas market: Register now

Weihnachtsmarkt am Abend mit eingeschalteter Beleuchtung.
Tariff information // 29 August 2024

Music at Christmas markets

Check out this page if you want to know how to correctly notify GEMA of your Christmas market, how much you need to pay for licence fees and whom you can ask if you have any questions.

  • Tariffs & costs
  • Advice & consultations
  • Press material
Tariff overview

Not all Christmas markets are alike

To ensure the music licence we issue to you for your Christmas market is as tailormade as possible, we need to consider each event day separately. GEMA’s tariffs distinguish between days with an event character (stage programme) and days, where music is merely playing in the background. It is therefore possible that you need to submit notifications for several days separately when it comes to your Christmas market.

Rebates and discounts

General agreement discounts

Up to 20% discount for members of umbrella associations

For members of umbrella associations who have entered into what is known as a Gesamtvertrag, or general agreement with GEMA, the licence can cost up to 20% less. This applies, for example, of the members of the Deutsche Städtetag, the German Association of Cities. The Deutsche Städtetag is member of the Federal Association of Music Event Organisers who has such an agreement with GEMA.

Click here for the list of all GEMA general agreement partners (in German)

What do I need to do?
Register your Christmas market in the GEMA Online Portal. We automatically check whether you are entitled to a discount. To be on the safe side, you can leave a comment in the comment box when submitting the notifiation in the GEMA Online Portal.

Volunteering blanket agreements

Reduce costs retroactively

Did your Christmas market not attract as many people as you thought? No problem. Just let us know the number of visitors after the event and we adapt the licence fee rate. We use 1.5 visitors per square metre as a basis but a minimum of 1/5 of the actual event area. Details are located in the tariff leaflet U-ST on page 3 (in German).

What do I need to do?
Register the actual number of visitors in the GEMA Online Portal after the event (My events > apply for a change) and ask for the amount to be recalculated in accordance with the rules on adequacy.

Ehrenamtspauschale

Register small, non-commercial Christmas markets in Bavaria and Thuringia

In Bavaria and Thuringia, the Land (federal State) takes over the licensing fees for Christmas markets as long as they meet certain requirements:

  • No entrance fee
  • A maximum of 500 square metres area
  • Organised by volunteers
  • Non-profit character
  • A maximum of 4 events per year and per association/organisation

Please check our information pages on the blanket agreements for volunteers to find out whether your Christmas market falls under this lump sum arrangement.

Volunteering blanket agreements in Bavaria (page in German)
Volunteering blanket agreements in Thuringia (page in German)

From 1 November, a new volunteering blanket agreement with the Land Lower Saxony will enter into force. Further volunteering blanket agreements are currently being negotiated.

What do I need to do?
Register your Christmas market in the GEMA Online Portal. If your market falls under the volunteering blanket agreement and you have not been registered as a customer to benefit from it, we will ask you for details when you contact us. Don´t be surprised: The cost will actually be displayed. It will, however, be taken care of by the relevant Bundesland. You do not get an invoice in this case.

Sample calculations

Fictitious sample calculation for a large Christmas market where there is a stage programme with live music every day.

Event area:
5,000 square metres
Programme:
daily stage programme with live music
General agreement rebate:
20% rebate taken into account (for example for members of the Deutsche Städtetag)

Cost per day: approx. 930 euros
(incl. VAT and GVL remuneration for music from sound recordings)

Fictitious sample calculation for a medium-sized Christmas market where the stage programme with live music only takes place on weekends. During the week, there is merely background music played in the area.

Event area:
1,500 square metres
Programme:

Friday to Sunday: Stage programme with live music

Monday to Thursday: Background music from speakers (4 speakers in total)

General agreement rebate:
20% rebate taken into account (for example for members of the Deutsche Städtetag)

Cost per day with programme (Fri to Sun): approx. 280 euros
Cost per day without programme (Mon to Thu): approx. 76 euros (4 speakers)

(incl. VAT and GVL remuneration for music from sound recordings)

Fictitious sample calculation for a small Christmas market without live music and without event character (no stage, no official programme). The market has two speakers for playing background music.

Programme:

no stage programme, only background music (2 speakers)

General agreement rebate:
20% rebate taken into account (for example for members of the Deutsche Städtetag)

Cost per day: approx. 38 euros (2 speakers)
(incl. VAT and GVL remuneration for music from sound recordings)

Explainer video

Register your Christmas market in the GEMA Online Portal

Marlene Kahn (Communications Department) and Lars Ebermann-Radsey (Berlin Office) answer the most important questions regarding the notification of and registration for your Christmas market in the video on the GEMA Online Portal.

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Erklärvideo II

Veranstaltungsfläche online ausmessen

Marlene Kahn (Communications Department) and Lars Ebermann-Radsey (Berlin Office) answer the most important questions regarding the notification of and registration for your Christmas market in the video on the GEMA Online Portal.

Callback

Phone consultation

For organisers of Christmas markets, we are providing individual consultation sessions by phone to clarify which tariffs apply for your own specific case. This way, we want to provide you with the best level of certainty possible when it comes to planning.

To request a callback, please complete the online form. Our licence experts will be in touch within a few days.

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Press section

It’s hard to imagine Christmas markets without music. In a GEMA survey in June 2024,  91 percent of the 400 participants in the survey who run Christmas markets mentioned that music was important for the atmosphere in their market.

In 2023, GEMA licensed music at approx. 4,000 Christmas markets in Germany.  Christmas markets usually covered 100 to 3,000 square metres, in some cases even up to 10,000 square metres.

Statement by Georg Oeller, member of the GEMA Managing Committee

“Since there was uncertainty when applying the tariffs last year, we now wish to provide information to all organisers about music use at their Christmas markets early enough. Our objective is to create certainty around the planning process so all organisers know which tariff is applicable and how music use needs to be registered.”

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Frequently asked questions on the licensing of Christmas markets

Please direct press enquiries to: kommunikation@gema.de.

When music is played at Christmas markets, whether live, from a sound carrier or a digital medium, this is a public performance of copyright-protected musical works. The German copyright law regulates that the people who composed and wrote the music must receive appropriate remuneration for it. GEMA represents this right for its more than 95,000 members (composers, lyricists, music publishers) in Germany and for more than two million rights holders worldwide.

This has many advantages for event organisers, as they can acquire the rights to almost all musical works worldwide with one licence (“world repertoire“). GEMA takes care of the processing, such as rights clearance and distribution of royalties.

In 2018, Christmas markets, which fall into the category of funfairs, generated an average of 18 euros per visit (acc. to a study of the German Fairground Association, a registered association) In comparison, the cost for GEMA licence fees in many cases is just 2.5 cents per visit of a Christmas market for the music licence.

You can calculate the expected licence fee for your event quickly and easily in the GEMA Online Portal. In the price calculator, select the option that applies to you (e.g. “Fest” or “Märkte im Freien”) and enter the information about your event. You will then receive an estimated price and can register the event directly online. Please make sure you enter the correct area: The basis for the licence is the entire event area (from the first stand to the last stand, from house wall to house wall) – even if only part of the area is covered by sound.

Go to the Price calculator

To find out whether your Christmas market actually has an event character, you need to ask yourself these questions:

  • Are there programme items at fixed times?
  • Is there a stage?
  • Is live music played or sung at the Christmas market? (E.g. Band, music ensemble or choir)
  • Is there a music-related performance, e.g. a joint Christmas carol singing or dance/acting event?

If you can answer any of these questions with a “yes”, our tariff U-ST applies for the event days in question. For all other days, the costs for your music licence are calculated on the basis of tariff M-U.

Yes, whenever music is used in public, it must be licensed as described above. It is possible to play works whose rights are not managed by GEMA or whose copyright protection has expired. These include some traditional Christmas songs that are licence-free in their original version because the authors of the songs died more than 70 years ago.

Please note: licence-free or GEMA free music must also be registered with us. This is the only way we can check the titles played and see whether GEMA free music or music subject to licence has been used. If you only play licence-free or GEMA free music, there are no GEMA licence costs.

Here you will find a list of licence free traditional Christmas songs. Please note that recent adaptions of these works (e.g. choral arrangements or sound recordings) may nevertheless be protected by copyright and therefore subject to GEMA licence fees.

Tariffs U-ST and M-U do not apply for events with admission, live concerts and events indoors or in tents (e.g. beer tents).  In those cases, the licensing amount is calculated on the basis of other tariffs. Further information is provided on the pages for the tariff for events (U-V), for concert tariff (U-K) and in our tariff overview.

This was determined by the German Bundesgerichtshof (Federal Court of Justice, BGH) in 2011. The judges argued: visitors move around the entire event area. This means that the same people are not always standing where music is being played, for example in front of the stage. As a result, more people listen to the music than can fit in the sound area.

The full decision text of 27 October 2011, in which the BGH defines the basis for calculating the tariff, can be found here: I ZR 175/10 (BGH, in German)