Some of you may know that I backup the girls choir in our church. It's one of the three choirs our church has, and most of the backup musicians are not the same either (although we sub).
The girls choir season ends this month, and sometimes we do a guest exchange with another church during the summer. We've been planning on doing it again this summer with another church across the border up north. Our choir has not crossed the border in some years as the most hassle has been getting all the proper parential authorization documents notorized among other things.
This year, we ran into CITES permit that added more complexity, and costs, due to the new regulations that required us to pay for permits to leave the US and then re-enter as traveling musicians.
What we found out is that some of us definitely needed a one-time permit at $75 or $100 (we did not clear this up before pulling the plug), and some of us appeared to be exempt (which is the category my bass likely fell into). Those of us with expensive exempted guitars/bass wondered how do we prove this at re-entry inspection. Again, we pulled the plug before resolving this.
We also found out that we needed to re-enter at approved ports with musican instruments that definitely had a permit, but was unclear if that requirement is for exempted instruments with wood listed on CITES. However, this was not a specific problem for us because the airport we used for the connecting flight was an approved port.
You can see those regulations here:
Musical Instruments
Be forewarned if you travel across the borders! The US Fish and Wildlive Service recommends 45 to 60 day lead time for processing permits. Perhaps they should have the permit application fully online, rather than download an application in the form of a PDF and snail mail it in.
The girls choir season ends this month, and sometimes we do a guest exchange with another church during the summer. We've been planning on doing it again this summer with another church across the border up north. Our choir has not crossed the border in some years as the most hassle has been getting all the proper parential authorization documents notorized among other things.
This year, we ran into CITES permit that added more complexity, and costs, due to the new regulations that required us to pay for permits to leave the US and then re-enter as traveling musicians.
What we found out is that some of us definitely needed a one-time permit at $75 or $100 (we did not clear this up before pulling the plug), and some of us appeared to be exempt (which is the category my bass likely fell into). Those of us with expensive exempted guitars/bass wondered how do we prove this at re-entry inspection. Again, we pulled the plug before resolving this.
We also found out that we needed to re-enter at approved ports with musican instruments that definitely had a permit, but was unclear if that requirement is for exempted instruments with wood listed on CITES. However, this was not a specific problem for us because the airport we used for the connecting flight was an approved port.
You can see those regulations here:
Musical Instruments
Be forewarned if you travel across the borders! The US Fish and Wildlive Service recommends 45 to 60 day lead time for processing permits. Perhaps they should have the permit application fully online, rather than download an application in the form of a PDF and snail mail it in.
