Event and pop-up liquor licence plans in Victoria: what you need

A pop-up, a festival bar, or a temporary venue in Victoria is often two drawings, and they get mixed up. One is the red line plan Liquor Control Victoria asks for when alcohol is part of the event. The other is the site layout a council or an event permit may ask for: marquees, stalls, exits, and how people move through the site. Arya Designs prepares both. They are not the same sheet, and a venue owner in Melbourne should know which one they have been asked for before they commission anything.

This guide is for operators running a limited or temporary liquor licence, a one-off bar, or a licensed area inside a larger event. It is not a licence application, and it is not legal advice. Liquor Control Victoria decides the licence. The council decides the event or the use of the land. Check both.

The liquor plan and the event plan

The red line plan is a floor plan, or a site plan, with a continuous red line around the area where alcohol will be sold, served or consumed, and anywhere a patron may go with a drink. LCV publishes the rules on Red line plans for licensed areas. Limited and temporary licences have their own include-and-exclude notes on that page. A temporary limited licence still needs the ordinary plan items: north, the address, the points of sale, the drinking areas, toilets, the area in square metres, and a note on how the boundary is marked when it is not a wall. Confirm the current list on that page before you lodge. Guidance changes, and the licence type changes what is inside the line.

The event layout is the plan of the temporary place itself. Marquees, stalls, stages, bars as structures, queuing, and the ways out. Councils and event permits ask for this when the question is the event, not the licensed boundary. A festival site can need this plan even when no alcohol is sold. When alcohol is sold, you may need both drawings. One does not replace the other.

If someone has asked you for an evacuation diagram, that is a third document. It shows how people leave. It is covered in evacuation diagrams vs redline plans. Do not send a red line and hope it will be read as an exit plan.

What a pop-up usually needs on the red line

Keep the plan readable. LCV's published list is the standard, including for temporary and limited licences. In practice, a Melbourne pop-up brief should be ready to answer:

• Where the bar or the point of sale sits
• Where people drink, seated or standing
• Where the toilets are, if a patron can walk there with a drink
• Whether the licensed area is a room, a marquee, a courtyard, or a marked patch of a larger site
• How the edge is marked: walls, fencing, ropes, café screens, or a barrier you will put up on the day
• The address, the surrounding streets, north, and the licensed area in square metres

A hand-drawn plan is allowed when it meets that list. We still issue DWG and PDF, so the PDF can be lodged and the DWG can move when the bar shifts at the next event. Why both files are part of the job applies here too. The free tick-list is the liquor licence checklist for Victoria. A weekend event does not get a shorter list. If the edge is a hired fence, a rope or a marquee wall, say which. We can only note the edge you will actually use.

When the $499 fee applies

A standard liquor licence redline is $499 flat, typically turned around in 48 hours, when we can work from accurate existing plans. You receive DWG and PDF. That fee is on the redline plans page, and it is the only dollar figure we publish.

A pop-up inside a venue that already has a current, scaled floor plan can often use that fee. A park, a street, a warehouse with no drawing, or a marquee city that has never been measured cannot. There is nothing reliable to put the red line on. The first step is then site measurement in Melbourne, quoted for the visit. A call-out fee may apply. We do not publish the amount. A laser scan, if the site is large or complex enough to need one, is quoted with the visit. We do not publish a scan price.

An event layout that is not a liquor red line, such as marquees, stalls and egress for a council event permit, is also a free quote. It is not the $499 product. Say which drawing you need when you enquire, or send both briefs and we will separate them.

What the measure looks like on the day, for a venue rather than an empty site, is in measuring your venue for a liquor licence redline plan.

Council, the regulator, and the event

Three desks can ask for paper, and they do not share one form.

Liquor Control Victoria asks for the red line when the application needs one. Pre-retail licences, and a BYO permit for a commercial party bus, are called out on LCV's page as cases that do not need a red line plan. Do not assume a temporary event is one of those. Read the licence you are actually applying for, and ask LCV if the licence type is unclear.

The council may ask for an event permit, a planning question, or a footpath and outdoor trading permit if the pop-up uses public land. City rules differ across Melbourne. A plan we draw for LCV is not a council event permit, and a council permit is not an LCV approval. Check with the council that covers the site.

A landowner may also ask for a layout before you occupy the space. That is a private condition, not the red line, unless they asked for the licensed area.

We draw what you instruct. We do not lodge the licence, and we do not tell you the event is approved. LCV and the council publish their own lead times. Use those, not a guess. Keep the DWG if you will run the bar again. If the site or the marquee changes, say so.

What to send with the brief

Send the address, the dates, any existing plan, a sketch of the bar, the drinking area and the toilets, the licence type if you know it, and any council paperwork. Say who else needs the file. Photos help. A satellite image does not. LCV says it does not show the internal layout, so it is the wrong base for a red line.

After the event

If the pop-up becomes a permanent tenancy, the temporary plan is a start, not the lease drawing. A changed fitout usually needs a fresh measure. Café and restaurant extras, including a footpath, stay in red line plans for cafés and restaurants.

If the event also needs a diagram of how people leave, order that separately. A red line of the licensed area does not set out exits or an assembly point. The difference is in evacuation diagrams vs redline plans.

Related reading

• Redline plans
• Site measurement in Melbourne
• Liquor licence checklist for Victoria
• Measuring your venue for a liquor redline
• Liquor licence redline plan Victoria: requirements and cost
• If redline means a builder markup or a council RFI, not a licensed area, read what is a redline plan