“Everybody wants to experience live music and there shouldn’t be any barriers in doing that.” – Gawain Forster, Director of Venues, Facilities and Operations at Band on the Wall, Manchester.
Going to see live music is something that most people have experienced at one point or another, whether it’s going to a festival in summer with friends, catching your favourite band perform on their UK tour, or simply watching an open mic night in the local with a bevvy in hand. Given that there is an abundance of live music to be seen out there in some form or another, it’s relatively easy to be able to experience it.
For some people, however, it’s not quite as simple.
In the UK, there are around 11.9 million disabled people. That means for almost 1 in 5 people, going to see live music is not as easy for a number of reasons. The main difficulty that disabled people face is accessibility. Whilst for most able bodied fans, going to a music venue is a simple process with little trepidation attached, people with disabilities often have added complications to consider, such as are there any stairs into the venue, will there be somewhere suitable to sit once inside and are there accessible toilets, to name just a few. These are the kind of things that most people take for granted, but for many fans with disabilities, these are considerations that must be thought about every time they want to experience live music.
To help venues and festivals across the UK to provide accessibly friendly places for deaf and disabled people to watch live music, Arts Council funded charity Attitude Is Everything was set up in 2000. Jacob Adams, Research and Campaigns Manager at the charity explains why the charity was established: “Our CEO Suzanne Bull is a disabled person and she was going to gigs and festivals very regularly and encountering some barriers and issues, sometimes even dangerous situations. She began writing in the music press about the experiences of being a disabled person wanting to go to live music. Through her writing and by raising the topic, it got picked up by the Arts Council and there began the start of Attitude Is Everything.”
Whilst the charity provides a number of services and heads numerous campaigns, the flagship of their work is the Charter of Best Practice. As stated on their website, “We support music venues and festivals to create a realistic action plan in order to work through each level of the Charter and aim for the Gold award, by demonstrating an on-going commitment to improving accessibility. We encourage events producers to go beyond the legal obligations set out in the Equality Act and implement best practice, providing a fair and equal service to their Deaf and disabled customers.”
The Charter of Best Practice is in place to help venues and festivals to improve their facilities, not to bring places down for not being up to standard. Adams says: “We made it clear from the beginning that rather than naming and shaming and calling people out publically, we thought the best way to make changes in the music industry was to seek to be a supportive friend and inform others about the realities of the music industry so that we can bring accessibility into the conversation.” It would be reasonable to think that if a venue or festival has a Bronze award, that they are not very accessible, but this is not the case. “It’s not like if you’ve got Bronze you’re not very good and if you’ve got Silver you’re better,” says Adams. “The Bronze is about getting the basics right and then it’s building things from there.”
Band on the Wall, a small live music venue in Manchester, was the first to be awarded the coveted Gold status on the Charter of Best Practice. This means that as well as achieving the minimum standard by having an accessible toilet, an evacuation plan, an accessible booking system and offering free tickets to PAs and carers, the venue has gone a step beyond the rest by being an ambassador for best practice. Gawain Forster, Director of Venues, Facilities and Operations, says: “There’s literally a handful of venues that have been awarded Gold and certainly most of them are big places with the money to be able to make changes to the building if they need to, so we’re really proud of gaining the highest award with being such a small venue.”
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Whilst accessibility at venues is hugely important, it is vital for people with disabilities to know how well the building or festival is equipped before they even attend. Jacob Adams from Attitude Is Everything says: “We did a survey of websites and we found that a third of venues don’t provide any information online about access. This is one of the biggest barriers for people.” For most people this information is not hugely necessary, but for a disabled person, this could be the difference between being able to attend a gig or not. Gawain Forster from Band on the Wall says: “Having information on our website about accessibility is important because disabled fans are a key customer base. They’re a lot more loyal than pretty much anyone because once you’ve found somewhere you can easily attend, you’re bound to go there again.”
Bingley Music Live in West Yorkshire, who have achieved Silver on the Charter of Best Practice, are another festival who believe that providing information online is hugely important for disabled customers. What makes them stand out from the majority of venues and festivals is their use of photos, providing visual aids of the routes a disabled customer would have to make when arriving at the festival and once inside. Andrew Wood, Festival Manager at Bingley Music Live, says: “We include so much information about accessibility on our website so that customers can make an informed choice. If a disabled customer was slightly nervous about getting to the festival, having pictures of the journey would probably help them.” This simple idea could easily be reproduced by other festivals and venues with little effort, which would provide disabled customers with helpful information that, realistically, they deserve to receive.
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Wheelchair users are the most obvious type of disabled customer, but there are tonnes of other disabilities around, many of which aren’t necessarily visible, and venues and festivals have to take account of these when making their site accessible. Community Festival in London, who are opening for the first time this summer, are already thinking about what they can do to make their initial festival accessible to as many people as possible. Natalie Hettle, Disability Accessibility Coordinator at Community, says: “For some of our performances we have British Sign Language happening. We liaise with certain artists who come on board with us and then we have interpreters who can interpret the songs for people who are deaf.” By having interpreters, this widens the number of people who can attend and enjoy the festival, even if it is only catering for a minority. “Disabled customers shouldn’t stop going to an event because of their disability,” says Hettle. “Also from a company perspective, we can make as much money from a disabled person as we can from anyone else, so it’s in our interest to cater for them.”
Whilst there have been significant improvements in terms of accessibility over the last decade, some venues and festivals still have a way to go before they’re up to scratch for disabled customers. Charley Jean Douglas, a wheelchair user and regular gig-goer, reminisces one festival she attended whose facilities shocked her. She says: “The festival had no access camping so was very dangerous, particularly for me being in a wheelchair. There was no regulation on the dedicated viewing platform so several people that shouldn’t have been on there were taking up space. Also, production workers used the platform as a staff area, taking up even more space that could have been used by people who really needed it.” Although Attitude Is Everything have worked hard with over 130 venues and festivals to make their facilities accessible for everyone, it is clear that the job is not yet complete and even more work needs to be done so that disabled customers are welcome, and catered for, in more venues across the UK.
No one in life should be made to feel left out, but most definitely not because of a disability. Whilst small tasks such as getting into a venue and going to the toilet are things most people simply take for granted at a gig, these can be huge obstacles for someone with a disability, especially if venues and festivals are not equipped for people with access requirements. It is hoped that with the continued work of Attitude Is Everything alongside venues and festivals up and down the UK, one day, disabled people will no longer have to think twice before going to a gig or a festival.
The reason why this should be the case? Because live music is for everyone.