Attitude is Everything’s Live Events Access Charter is a framework, toolkit and assessment process for the live events and music industry to show real commitment to accessibility. It is based on 25 years of disabled people reporting to us the barriers they experience at events, our conversations with the industry to address them, and interpreting recognised accessibility standards for the sector. Charter members range from grassroots venues to arenas to major and independent festivals.
Attitude is Everything is committed to supporting the sector to make genuine improvements to accessibility.
In Spring 2023, we decided to run an audit of the Charter – to see what was working well, and what could do with some tweaks. Through analysing our processes, questionnaires, one-to-one interviews with our staff, roundtables with industry professionals, and feedback from our Mystery Shopping network, we gained valuable insights.
What did our research tell us?
Many of our processes reflected the technology and systems available at the time the Charter was created. Organisations needed to complete an Action Plan on an Excel sheet which – as the Charter had developed over time – had become big, complicated and unwieldy – not accessible enough! Because of this, several people we spoke to shared a feeling of dread at the admin required to complete the process.
People asked for the process to be more fun and engaging. They wanted clearer, more organised sections and a visual way to track their progress.
Making the work values-driven
Following our discovery process, we developed some values and practices that we wanted front and centre to the new and improved Charter.
- Integrate community voice, intersectionality, and sustainability throughout
- Proactive and adaptable to innovations and new practice
- User friendly, easy to navigate, and accessible
- Modular with bitesize elements
- Celebrates good practice
- Sharing our work with artists, professionals and volunteers as well as audiences.
What’s next for the new Charter?
The new and improved Live Events Access Charter will be hosted on an online learning platform to solve some of the previous issues. Users will be able to contribute to four clear areas of work to improve their accessibility standards, making things easier and more efficient.
Stay tuned! We’ll be sharing more about this, plus hearing from some of the organisations on the pilot programme, very soon.
