Showroom vs Trade Show Booth: Which Drives More Orders?
Booking casting space for minors in New York changes the shape of the day before anyone reads a line. Headcount roughly doubles, because a child performer, anyone under 18 providing creative or artistic services, arrives with at least one adult. The permit sits with the family, the employer certificate with the production. And New York counts a child’s hours from arrival at the building, not from when the camera rolls.
We run eight casting rooms at 545 8th Ave in the Garment District. On a kids day the corridor tells you by eleven whether the schedule was realistic.
Below is the rule set as the New York State Department of Labor publishes it for child performers. Figures change, so confirm your specifics with the Department and counsel. None of this is legal advice.
What a minor needs on paper before a casting session
A child performer needs a Child Performer Permit from the New York State Department of Labor before work begins. A parent or guardian applies, not the agent, manager or employer, though any may help with the form. There is no fee. The permit runs one year, renewable no more than 30 days before expiry.
Supporting documents include a School Form (LS560), Health Form (LS562), Trust Account Form (LS566) and Emergency Contact Form (LS563). Allow 15 days for processing, three weeks by mail. First-time applicants can get a one-time 15-day temporary permit online, which buys time to open a trust account.
A permit is required even when the child is unpaid: the Department’s child performer FAQ asks that exact question and answers yes. Exemptions are narrow: certain church, school and academy performances, performances in a private home, some amateur broadcast work, and group certificate work.
Does a casting call or audition itself require a permit
The honest answer is narrower than most articles give. Part 186, the regulation governing child performers in New York, never uses the word audition. It defines “employ” broadly, as permitting or suffering a child performer to engage in artistic or creative services, and says payment is irrelevant.
So the regulation reaches activity that is not a paid shoot day, and the Department publishes no line placing auditions inside or outside it. Its FAQ sends uncovered questions to the Permit and Certificate Unit on (518) 457-2735. Most New York productions ask minors to hold a current permit at the casting stage and run the session as though the rules apply, because the downside is a suspended certificate.
The Employer Certificate of Eligibility, and who needs one
The employer side is separate paperwork. A Certificate of Eligibility to Employ Child Performers is applied for on form LS550, with LS551 verifying New York State workers’ compensation and disability coverage, and lasts up to three years. The Department lists $200 initial registration for theatres seating 1 to 499, $350 for all others, $200 to renew.
Who needs one is wider than most coordinators expect. Per the Department’s FAQ it reaches any entity employing a child performer in New York directly or through a third party, including one that only controls the site.
A Certificate of Group Eligibility (LS553) covers a group, lasts two days, and carries a ratio of one responsible person per 20 performers under 16. A Notice of Employment of Child Performer (LS556) goes to the Department before the performers are used, through its MPWR portal.
Child performer trust accounts, and how New York differs from the Coogan Law
New York requires a child performer trust account, opened by the parent or guardian before the child’s first day of paid employment. The employer transfers at least 15 percent of gross earnings into it, and a parent can ask for more. Above $250,000 a trust fund company must become custodian. No trust information, no one-year permit. The rule sits in Article 4-A of the Labor Law, the 2003 Child Performer Education and Trust Act.
California’s equivalent is the Coogan Law, and its blocked account is what people mean by a Coogan account. New York accepts one: its FAQ says an account may be opened in any state that meets New York’s requirements, naming UTMA and UGMA accounts and a blocked Coogan-type account. What most articles blur is the direction of travel. A Coogan account does not give you a New York permit, and the reverse does not satisfy California.
| Item | New York | California |
| Minor’s permit | Child Performer Permit, NYS DOL, no fee, one year | Entertainment Work Permit, Labor Commissioner’s Office (DLSE) |
| Employer document | Certificate of Eligibility (LS550), up to three years, $200 or $350 initial fee | Permit to Employ Minors in the Entertainment Industry, DLSE, no fee |
| Trust account | At least 15 percent of gross earnings, trust company custodian above $250,000 | Blocked Coogan-type account, accepted by NYS DOL for a New York permit |
| High school graduation | No exemption from permit or hour limits | NYS DOL flags this as a difference |
The California column follows what the Labor Commissioner’s Office publishes on entertainment work permits for minors, and both states revise these.
How many hours a minor can spend at a session
Every age band carries two figures: maximum hours at the place of employment, and maximum hours of work inside that. Meals, rest breaks and instruction count toward the on-set maximum. The gap between them is rest and recreation, not padding.
A casting session is a non-live performance. These are the Department’s permitted work hours for ages 6 to 17, on form LS559. Rest and recreation is the remaining time on set.
| School status | Age | Max hours at the workplace | Max hours of work |
| In session | 6 to 8 | 8 | 4 |
| In session | 9 to 15 | 9 | 5 |
| In session | 16 to 17 | 10 | 6 |
| Not in session | 6 to 8 | 8 | 6 |
| Not in session | 9 to 15 | 9 | 7 |
| Not in session | 16 to 17 | 10 | 9 |
Nothing starts before 5:00 am, nothing runs past 10:00 pm on an evening before a school day, and on a non-school-day morning the limit moves to 12:30 am. A performer needs 12 hours of rest between workdays, so a Thursday evening callback can disqualify a Friday morning session. If the child arrives after school, maximum presence drops by three hours: a 10 year old in class until 3:00 pm has six hours left, not nine. On a one-day assignment, performers six months and older may add two hours, then not the next day.
Under six the limits tighten hard. An infant’s maximum presence is two hours with 20 minutes of work. A two to five year old can be on site six hours, work three, and must have three hours of rest and recreation. A child under 15 days old cannot be employed. Read the band edges off the current LS559 chart, because they do not match the school-age bands.
Who has to be in the room, and where the parent sits
New York does not use the word chaperone. The regulation’s term is responsible person: an adult over 18 designated or employed to supervise one or more child performers and safeguard their best interests. Every performer under 16 needs one all day, and a parent may serve or name another adult.
The sentence that settles the waiting-room argument is in Part 186, section 186-4.6: the employer must allow the responsible person to be within sight or sound of the child at all times. Sight or sound. A parent can sit in the waiting area with the door open, or outside a door thin enough to hear through. The lobby does not count. One narrow exception covers live theatre, where the designee may instead observe and hear the child electronically.
Union sessions add a layer. SAG-AFTRA’s commercials contract guidance on casting minors requires two adults at an audition, both associated with casting, and parents allowed within sight and sound during it. Virtual viewing may be used where available. A casting director alone with a child falls short. That guidance was written against the 2022 Commercials Contract; the 2025 Commercials Contracts ratified in May 2025 added further protections for minors, so check the union’s current guidance.
For infants, Part 186 adds ratios: a nurse with pediatric experience plus a responsible person per three or fewer babies aged 15 days to six weeks, and the same pairing per ten or fewer aged six weeks to six months. Background checks are a production decision, not a Part 186 rule.
When is a studio teacher required
If school is in session and the booking interrupts schooling, the employer provides the instruction. Not the venue, not the parent. Part 186 requires a teacher who is certified or holds credentials New York recognises, time inside the workday for schooling, and a space used only for instruction and study. Instruction must average at least three hours per school day across the week, and no child may go more than ten consecutive days without it. Homeschooled and distance-education children are treated differently.
A one-day casting session rarely triggers an on-site teacher. A week of callbacks and fittings in March can, and then you need a second room, not a corner of the holding area.
What a compliant casting space for minors actually needs
Part 186 is light on building specifications and specific about function. The employer must provide a safe, clean, secure, age-appropriate place, a crib or playpen where age appropriate, space for breastfeeding within the child’s routine, and somewhere suitable to eat. It may not hold child performers once work is finished.
The audition room. Two adults associated with casting, a reader, a camera on a tripod, and a mark the child can find without being coached onto it. Turn the monitor away from the door, because a parent reading their child’s face on a screen changes the read. Set the eyeline away from the door so a passing parent does not pull focus. Leave the door ajar or use one with a vision panel, which meets sight or sound without a third adult.
Noise. Children waiting are louder than adults waiting, and a casting room shares a wall with whatever is next to it. Either take two adjacent rooms so the holding area is yours, or work on a floor where the waiting space is separate. The private 23A space suits small callbacks with one family at a time and is nothing like an open-call day.
The waiting area. Seats for every adult, not every child. Clear floor a four year old can sit on. A bathroom on the same floor with a surface for changing a baby. Water, bins, a visible queue position, because congestion starts with parents who cannot tell how long is left.
Siblings, infants and family groups in the holding area
Plan headcount as adults plus children plus siblings, then add ten percent. A family bringing a six year old to a Tuesday open call often brings a toddler and a stroller too.
This is where pricing bites. At 14A, the larger casting room on the 14th floor, guest-count tiers sit on top of the hourly rate: $25 for 11 to 15 guests, $30 for 16 to 20, $35 for 21 to 25 and $50 for 26 to 50. Thirty children with thirty parents puts you in the top tier. Taking 14A alongside 14B so the next room becomes the holding area often costs less than the overtime when the corridor jams.
What goes on the sign-in sheet, and who keeps it
Part 186 requires the employer to keep records including hours worked, plus a copy of each permit at the workplace for inspection, with the Employer Certificate ready to produce. Under section 186-7.2(e), failure to produce either on demand is prima facie evidence of illegal employment. Your sign-in sheet is the primary evidence of the hours.
Build it to carry what the hour rules turn on: name, age, permit number and expiry, arrival at the building, time called in, time released, the designated responsible person, whether the child came from school, and emergency contact. The school column is the one most sheets omit, and the one that moves maximum presence by three hours.
The production keeps the sheet. We can print it and hold a scan, but a studio manager’s building log is not a labour-law record.
Supervision when self-tapes are shot on site
Nothing relaxes for a tape. The child is still at a place of employment, hours still run from arrival, a performer under 16 still needs a responsible person within sight or sound, and two casting-side adults are still the union standard on a covered commercial audition.
What changes is the room. A tape station needs a controlled key and a clean background, and the lighting approach that works for a self-tape is not a room lit for a live read, so keep it as a second station rather than the holding area.
On city permits, the NYC Mayor’s Office of Media and Entertainment lists the triggers: City property, equipment beyond a hand-held or tripod camera, production-vehicle parking, prop weapons, stunts, or NYPD and FDNY assistance. A session inside a rented room engages none of those. A truck on 8th Avenue does.
Insurance, the COI, and who is responsible for what
The venue asks for a certificate of insurance naming it as an additional insured before the booking, and what belongs on a COI for a casting session does not change because the performers are children. What does change is the workers’ compensation and disability coverage LS551 verifies for the employer certificate.
The production owns the Employer Certificate, a copy of every child’s permit, the LS556 notice, hour tracking and the sign-in sheet, designating responsible persons, trust transfers, any required teacher and instruction space, LS563 forms, and the COI. The venue owns a clean, safe, lockable room with the sightlines you booked, the bathroom, a waiting area for the declared headcount, a studio manager, freight access, and an honest answer about what is next door.
Two things sit outside the booking: licensing for any food vendor you bring in, and whatever mandated reporter protocol you want for the day. Both belong with your counsel, because the room carries neither.
Common compliance mistakes on a kids casting day
- Counting hours from the first slot rather than from building arrival
- Forgetting the three-hour reduction for children arriving from school
- A 7:00 pm Thursday callback that breaks the 12-hour rest rule before Friday
- One casting director alone in the room on a union commercial session
- Sending parents to the lobby, which is neither sight nor sound
- Letting a permit lapse mid-run
- Declaring the child headcount at booking, not the real one
Pre-session compliance checklist
- Employer Certificate of Eligibility current, expiry at least 30 days away
- Notice of Employment of Child Performer (LS556) filed with the Department of Labor
- A copy of every child’s permit collected, expiry logged
- Trust account confirmed for any paid engagement from the session
- Emergency contact and medical authorisation (LS563) for every child
- Hour plan per age band against LS559, with the school-day reduction
- Responsible person named for every performer under 16, in writing where it is not the parent
- Two adults associated with casting for every audition slot
- Nurse ratios if infants are scheduled, teacher and instruction space if schooling is interrupted
- Sign-in sheet with the school-day and permit-expiry columns
- COI filed with the venue as additional insured
- Real headcount declared, siblings included
- Waiting area, bathroom and changing surface walked beforehand
- Permits and the Employer Certificate on site for inspection
How far ahead to book a kids casting session
Work backwards from the slowest document, not the room. Allow 15 days for permit processing, three weeks by mail, and employer certificate approval through MPWR can land in three business days on a complete file. That puts four to five weeks between deciding to cast children and the session, if any family needs a permit.
Rooms move faster. Most of our casting and audition rooms show live availability on a five-hour minimum, so the booking takes minutes. Two to three weeks suits a single room, four if you need two adjacent rooms, because adjacency sells out first. If you are still sizing the day, what a casting room in New York costs for a given headcount beats starting with a calendar.
Tuesday to Thursday mornings are quietest here. School holidays are the opposite, and February and April breaks go early.
FAQ
Do you need a child performer permit for an audition in New York?
The Department of Labor requires a permit before a child performer works, and Part 186 never uses the word audition. Because the definition of employ is broad and does not turn on payment, most New York productions require a current permit at the casting stage. Confirm yours on (518) 457-2735.
How do I get a NYS child performer permit, and how long does it take?
A parent or guardian applies online or by mail with the School (LS560), Health (LS562), Trust Account (LS566) and Emergency Contact (LS563) forms. There is no fee. Allow 15 days for processing, or three weeks by mail. First-time applicants can get a one-time 15-day temporary permit online.
How often is child performer permit renewal needed?
Permits run one year from issue, renewable no more than 30 days before expiry. Keep the expiry in your casting database rather than relying on the family: one that lapses between a first read and a callback stops the child working.
What is a Coogan account, and does New York require one?
A Coogan account is California’s blocked trust account for a minor performer’s earnings. New York requires its own child performer trust account, with the employer transferring at least 15 percent of gross earnings. It accepts an out-of-state account meeting its requirements, including a blocked Coogan-type account. A Coogan account alone does not produce a New York permit.
Can a parent be asked to wait outside the casting room?
Yes, within limits. Part 186 requires the employer to allow the responsible person within sight or sound of a performer under 16 at all times, so a parent seated outside an open or audible door meets the rule. SAG-AFTRA says the same for auditions. The lobby meets neither.
How many hours can a 10 year old be at a casting session?
Under the Department’s non-live limits, a performer aged 9 to 15 may be at the workplace up to nine hours with five hours of work while school is in session, and nine with seven when it is not. Presence counts from arrival. Subtract three hours if the child comes from school.
