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Suzanne Bull MBE, is Chief Executive of Attitude is Everything, a charity committed to improving access for deaf and disabled music fans at concerts. Here, she shares her thoughts on the sissues currently affecting disabled gig goers across the UK.
We recently published our latest State of Access report - a biennial snapshot of how well the live music business is serving the 3.6 million deaf and disabled fans estimated to attend UK gigs and festivals each year.
Since our last report in 2014, we have undoubtedly seen some major progress. Over 100 venues and festivals are now signed up to our Charter of Best Practice, ranging from Glastonbury and the O2 Arena right through to small capacity clubs and halls. The working group Attitude is Everything convened with the Society of Ticket Agents & Retailers is delivering results in provision of accessible ticketing. And our #MusicWithoutBarriers awareness campaign has been supported by Stevie Wonder, alt-J, The Cure, chvrches, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and many other amazing artists.
Momentum, it feels, is with us; and we’re moving towards my ultimate goal that deaf and disabled people can attend, work or perform at any event that they wish. There is still a way to go, of course, and a key focus of this year’s report is the quality of online access information provided to disabled audiences.
After surveying more than 380 venues and festival websites what we found was quite surprising. One in three included no access information at all. On a significant number of others, we rated the information provided as poor.
This might sound a fairly minor issue (it certainly wouldn’t be hard to fix!) but the impact is monumental. Two out of every three disabled fans we surveyed, who were looking to attend live event, said they couldn’t find the online information that they needed. Sixty percent said they were put off buying a ticket as a result.
The situation is most pronounced with small grassroots venues, where only one in three of those surveyed provided any access information online. These places are the heart of our music communities - where local fans meet up, where ideas are shared, and where magic happens. If they’re not inclusive of disabled fans, then that’s a major problem - and it’s why we’ve started the Access Starts Online initiative, launched initially in partnership with the Association of Independent Festivals and then with Sybil Bell at Independent Venue Week.
The idea behind the campaign is simple. For any live business unsure about what information they should be providing to disabled fans, Attitude is Everything supplies a template that covers all they need to know. Filling it out and uploading it should take no longer than an hour. If everybody did it, that would be a major step forward.
At the end of the day, this is nothing more than good customer service. The most forward-thinking live businesses, who are really involving disabled people in their area, are not only feeling the benefits commercially, they are also becoming very creative. We give many examples of this in the report, from the audio guides provided by Manchester’s Band on the Wall to the informative maps on the Nozstock website.
So please, have a read of our State of Access Report and act on what it says. And if your local venue doesn’t provide an access information page then please direct them to me! Live music should be inclusive for everyone, including a huge community of disabled fans. Or, as Stevie Wonder put it so perfectly at the Grammys: ‘We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself.
attitudeiseverything.org.uk
We recently published our latest State of Access report - a biennial snapshot of how well the live music business is serving the 3.6 million deaf and disabled fans estimated to attend UK gigs and festivals each year.
Since our last report in 2014, we have undoubtedly seen some major progress. Over 100 venues and festivals are now signed up to our Charter of Best Practice, ranging from Glastonbury and the O2 Arena right through to small capacity clubs and halls. The working group Attitude is Everything convened with the Society of Ticket Agents & Retailers is delivering results in provision of accessible ticketing. And our #MusicWithoutBarriers awareness campaign has been supported by Stevie Wonder, alt-J, The Cure, chvrches, Queens of the Stone Age, Muse and many other amazing artists.
Live music should be inclusive for everyone, including a huge community of disabled fans.
Momentum, it feels, is with us; and we’re moving towards my ultimate goal that deaf and disabled people can attend, work or perform at any event that they wish. There is still a way to go, of course, and a key focus of this year’s report is the quality of online access information provided to disabled audiences.
After surveying more than 380 venues and festival websites what we found was quite surprising. One in three included no access information at all. On a significant number of others, we rated the information provided as poor.
This might sound a fairly minor issue (it certainly wouldn’t be hard to fix!) but the impact is monumental. Two out of every three disabled fans we surveyed, who were looking to attend live event, said they couldn’t find the online information that they needed. Sixty percent said they were put off buying a ticket as a result.
The situation is most pronounced with small grassroots venues, where only one in three of those surveyed provided any access information online. These places are the heart of our music communities - where local fans meet up, where ideas are shared, and where magic happens. If they’re not inclusive of disabled fans, then that’s a major problem - and it’s why we’ve started the Access Starts Online initiative, launched initially in partnership with the Association of Independent Festivals and then with Sybil Bell at Independent Venue Week.
The idea behind the campaign is simple. For any live business unsure about what information they should be providing to disabled fans, Attitude is Everything supplies a template that covers all they need to know. Filling it out and uploading it should take no longer than an hour. If everybody did it, that would be a major step forward.
At the end of the day, this is nothing more than good customer service. The most forward-thinking live businesses, who are really involving disabled people in their area, are not only feeling the benefits commercially, they are also becoming very creative. We give many examples of this in the report, from the audio guides provided by Manchester’s Band on the Wall to the informative maps on the Nozstock website.
So please, have a read of our State of Access Report and act on what it says. And if your local venue doesn’t provide an access information page then please direct them to me! Live music should be inclusive for everyone, including a huge community of disabled fans. Or, as Stevie Wonder put it so perfectly at the Grammys: ‘We need to make every single thing accessible to every single person with a disability.’ I couldn’t have said it better myself.
attitudeiseverything.org.uk
