TOO LOUD

A campaign to enforce safer sound level limits at music events.

In 2023 my hearing was permanently damaged when attending a music concert in Scarborough's Spa theatre. I now suffer from a constant high-pitched whistle in my ears 24 hours a day (tinnitus).   The music was so loud I moved to the back, put my fingers in my ears, then left at the interval. There were no warning signs at the box office and no ear plugs on sale. I contacted the venue, the music promoters (Entertainers Show Providers Ltd), the local Council, my MP, Tinnitus UK, RNID, several claims companies & lawyers, the BBC, Private Eye, local newpapers, the HSE (Health & Safety Executive), the Minister for Health and others. I have never received a formal apology but after several phone calls the local Council's venues manager said he would get the sound levels checked, see the chart at the bottom of this page. 

The local Council said they follow HSE guidance that allows sound levels of 107 decibels peaking to 120dB. That is over 200 times the safe limit recommended by audiologists, 85dB. When I approached the HSE they initially replied: We have reviewed the information you provided and concluded that on this occasion we will not follow-up this matter. The reason being there are no specific noise levels for the audience / member of the public within the health and safety legislation. On my appeal they replied: However, the operator has a duty under Section 3 of the Health and Safety at Work etc. Act 1974 (HSWA) for those not in their employment e.g., audiences, to ensure that members of the public attending their events are not exposed to risks to their health and safety; this includes protecting the public from damage to their hearing. HSE strongly recommends that the A-weighted equivalent continuous sound level over the duration of the event (Event LAeq)  in any part of the audience area should not exceed 107dB. Where the Event LAeq is likely to exceed 96dB, the audience should be advised of the risk to their hearing in advance, e.g. either on tickets, advertising or notices at entry points. The HSE 'guidance' document for music venues at : https://www.hse.gov.uk/pubns/priced/hsg260.pdf

There are 7 million, 1 in 10, people who suffer from tinnitus in the UK. The disability can lead to depression and even suicide. There is no known cure. Hearing loss costs the NHS over £400 million a year. I cannot hear birds sing or the actors in my local theatre because of the whistle in my ears. Why do music events and film screenings have to be so loud? 

Suicidal thoughts are experienced by one in five tinnitus sufferers. A new report from Tinnitus UK reveals a lack of mental health support for the condition. Tinnitus UK, a leading independent charity dedicated to supporting individuals coping with tinnitus in the United Kingdom, has unveiled groundbreaking research underscoring the critical need for enhanced healthcare support and services for those affected by this pervasive condition. Startling statistics reveal the harsh reality of the tinnitus landscape, impacting 1 in 7 adults in the UK and severely diminishing the quality of life for 1 in 6 of those individuals. In December 2023, Tinnitus UK conducted a study involving 478 people afflicted by tinnitus to delve into their experiences and the challenges they encounter in accessing healthcare support for the condition.

The findings are distressing:

• Over one in five respondents experienced thoughts of suicide or self-harm in the last year.

• More than 8 out of 10 reported low mood or anxiety, with 7 out of 10 feeling hopeless or helpless.

• 85.7% reported sleep disturbances.

• The emotional toll is significant, with 68.4% reporting low self-esteem and 54.9% struggling to think rationally.

Tinnitus is also linked to social isolation, impacting relationships and daily life, with two-thirds of respondents avoiding contact with friends, minimising social activities, or facing difficulties at work..

Limited mental health support is available, with only 5% offered Psychological Interventions such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT). (Feb 2024)

YOUR STORIES:-  Please send me yours

From Pipedown.org.uk: A report in the USA shows that a whole generation of young people are facing a future half-crippled by hearing loss due to listening to excessively loud music through headphones and at concerts. Unsafe listening practices are ‘highly prevalent’ among young people at rock festivals and night clubs and when listening on personal devices.

Performers with tinnitus blamed on loud music:


Rick Astley, Neil Young , Barbra Streisand, Eric Clapton, Radiohead’s lead singer, Motorhead’s Lemmy, Bono U2 lead singer, Phil Collins , Cher, Ozzy Ozborne, Huey Lewis, Francis Rossi Status Quo, Pete Townshend "I have severe hearing damage. It's manifested itself as tinnitus, ringing in the ears at frequencies that I play guitar. It hurts, it's painful, and it's frustrating." 

Ian Baird said "I took my grandchildren to a school disco and it was so loud one of them had to leave"

Diane Irwin: "I had to leave some concerts due to the output which made my heart feel like it was jumping out of my chest. 38 Degrees are able to start campaigns that prompt the government into debating the subject"

Irene on Quora: My first concert was so loud I wanted to leave immediately. I would’ve left if I could’ve. I’d have paid to leave. I was in disbelief that anything could be that loud, i kept looking around to see if anyone else was in pain like me.... My friend took me to the concert as a birthday gift so I had to stay but it was really hard to tolerate. It was really hard to enjoy the music because every few seconds my brain screamed with panic “this is too loud I need to leave!”. I wanted to cry. I felt like my brain might explode.... My head ached for days, my ears hurt all during the concert and for days after.... We were pretty close to the stage.. There were speakers aiming right at us. It was a good concert but omg it was so painful. Nothing could’ve blocked enough sound to make it tolerable. At one point I went to the bathroom just to get a break from the sound. I shoved toilet paper in my ears and it didn’t help at all. It was all I could do to force myself to return to my seat after the relief of having a wall between the concert and my ears. Since then I’ve seen a few other concerts and they’re all painfully too loud. 

Judith Founds: Years ago I won two tickets to an Abba tribute band. The seats were on the front row in front of a huge amplifier. The noise was deafening and our ears rang for hours afterwards. I began to have hearing problems a year or two afterwards and after an audiology appointment I was issued with two hearing aids which I've needed ever since.

From Music Week: Musicians are four times more likely to be affected than anyone else. Tim Bricheno, former Sisters Of Mercy, said: The rule of thumb is: with anything over 85 decibels – which is about the level of a vacuum cleaner – you’re at risk of damaging your hearing if you spend a great deal of time exposed to it. The higher the number of decibels, the lower the amount of time it’s safe to spend around it. In 2019, I was helping a young band who were just getting going, so I agreed to go into the rehearsal studio with them and I remember thinking, ‘Christ, they’re playing really loud’ and sure enough, at the end of that three-hour session I had tinnitus. When you gig or you go into a rehearsal room you’re putting your hand in the fire every single time. At the moment it’s absolutely unregulated. Nobody cares if you get tinnitus if you go to a gig. There are no rules. But if you work on a construction site you have to wear hearing protection if the sound of the jackhammer goes beyond 85 decibels. I’ve never been to a gig that’s less than 90 to 100 decibels and most of them are tipping in at around 110. In any other industry that would be breaking the law. I’d like to see a change in the law at a governmental level. The situation with volume regulation at concerts is that there isn’t any. Anything goes.

From Tinnitus UK's Patrick Morrison: I would agree that risk to hearing from exposure to loud noise levels at concerts is an issue for us as a society to be concerned about and, perhaps moreover, presents a challenge to the NHS in years to come, in terms of the need to treat patients whose hearing has been prematurely damaged by clubbing, gig-going or prolonged use of headphones to listen to music or whilst playing video games.

From RNID (Royal National Institute for the Deaf): How loud is too loud?

40dB: a quiet library, 60dB: ordinary spoken conversation, 85dB: a food blender, 88dB: heavy traffic, 91dB: a pneumatic drill, 97dB: an industrial fire alarm, 100dB: a nightclub, 110dB: a live gig or concert, 130dB: an aeroplane taking off 100m away.

Repeated or long exposure to sounds at 85dB or above can cause hearing loss. The safe exposure time for 85dB is up to eight hours a day. Remember that you’re exposed to lots of different sounds that are 85dB or over throughout the day, and this exposure time adds up. As sound intensity doubles with every increase of 3dB, the safe exposure time halves. So, for example, the safe exposure time for 88dB is four hours. You may be exposed to noise that’s dangerously loud if you go to music events, listen to music through headphones, shoot for sport, ride a motorbike or use power tools. If you find you can’t hear properly or have ringing in your ears for a few hours afterwards, it’s a sign you’ve been exposed to noise that’s loud enough to damage your ears and you may have developed a slight and permanent hearing loss. If you keep exposing yourself to loud noise, this damage will become more noticeable and permanent over time. If noise is so loud that it hurts your ears, you should immediately leave the venue or stop the activity that’s causing the noise – and use hearing protection in future. Remember, the louder the noise is and the longer you are exposed to it, the higher the risk to your hearing. You can protect your hearing by lowering the volume of music, reducing the time you’re exposed to loud noise, and using earplugs or ear defenders in noisy environments.

Jennifer Sonley, 39, developed the condition 14 years ago. “I went to see a band playing in a pub for a friend’s birthday and I was standing quite close to a speaker. It never occurred to me that it cause me any damage. I left the pub with ringing in my ear and did think ‘that was a good night’ but then when I woke up in the morning it was still there, and I have had it ever since.” Jennifer is one of six million people suffering from tinnitus. “I became a changed person. I had always been a confident person but I started to become really anxious and stressed. My social life almost stopped because I was certain if I went anywhere loud it would make the tinnitus worse. I never went anywhere without ear plugs, which I now know is the wrong thing to do,” says the mum of two boys. “I spend my whole life avoiding situations where I know there will be a lot of noise. When the boys were little I would make sure that when we visited things like a playground or a soft play centre it would be when it wasn’t busy so the noise wasn’t as mad. “There isn’t a day goes by when I don’t worry about it. It dictates how I plan my day. It is so against my natural character. I often wonder what life would have been like without tinnitus. Jennifer says for the majority of the time she has learnt to live with the constant noise, but sometimes noise “spikes” and becomes unbearable.“Two years ago I was going through a pretty stressful time and the tinnitus really flared up and I just couldn’t deal with it.”  She has been to her GP many times, but the overwhelming response is that she needs to learn to live with it. “That is a really difficult thing to come to terms with,” she says. She has seen specialists in the past but they have offered her very little help. After one particularly bad episode in desperation Jennifer contacted the Sheffield-based British Tinnitus Association pleading for help. “They told me that there was an ENT department at Harrogate Hospital which is near where I live. They suggested that CBT (Cognitive Behavioural Therapy ) might help, but they didn’t do it. “I went to the GP and asked them to refer me, but I had to fill out a form which made me really uncomfortable, it made it sound that if I wasn’t suicidal they wouldn’t refer me.” (Yorkshire Post).

Sound levels recorded at Scarborough Spa show the average sound level at near 100dB and peaks at over 125dB!

So what next, can we get safer regulations or a law introduced? 

Noise and the Law  is the title of a book authored by Prof Francis McManus, UKNA’s legal expert, and Andy McKenzie, published by Edinburgh University Press. Prof McManus told me "Your only recourse would be to sue those responsible for the operation of the pa system for damages. While there is little case law concerning injury caused by noise to human hearing, the legal principles are quite settled. If your hearing loss was a foreseeable consequence of the noise in question, those responsible for the operation of the system would owe you a duty of care in the law of negligence. However, if you go down that route your potential legal costs could be considerable".

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