Accessibility is central to the event planning process – ensuring events can be enjoyed by everybody who wishes to attend.
We spoke to Jan Rankou, Senior Operations Manager at We Are OPS, to explore some of the ways in which accessibility must be considered at events…
Jan, can you just discuss some of the barriers that people might experience if accessibility is not considered on an event site?
People can face a wide variety of barriers on site if accessibility is not considered. For many people, barriers start the moment they come across an event online – before even entering the festival, or buying a ticket.
Getting to a festival – whether that be method of travel, or requiring a personal assistant to be in attendance – can provide immediate barriers for some attendees.
More barriers can come about when it comes to accessing and navigating the site, in terms of mobility. Considerations can include accessing the bar and the toilet, and if assistance is required in doing so. It might not be a case of mobility, but simply a question of, can I take and store my medicine on site? They may need a fridge to do so.
So, how can event organisers ensure all attendees have a good experience?
We try and think about a person’s journey outside and inside the festival site, to try and make it as easy as possible.
Considering accessibility from the outset is key: we create planning documents to support accessible events, and consult in the lead up – encouraging consideration of accessible routes, queue lanes, bar counters, toilet blocks and viewing platforms within event plans.
With regards to accessibility needs on the day of the event, we offer free PA tickets to anybody who lets us know they require assistance in advance. We also make sure to brief all security beforehand on different accessibility needs, so that they know in advance how to support, or to put the person in touch with our team to assist with this.
We create accessibility packs that we share with all crew, including information about travel, parking, toiler locations, water points locations and more.
Information is key, and we request all of our clients to include contact information on their event websites, as well as their ticket pages, so people can get in touch regarding any accessibility needs via our community inbox. As we get closer to the event, we work with the marketing teams on content to communicate about accessibility needs.
We like to encourage communication from the get-go to make people feel at ease ahead of the live event, to ensure we can manage barriers, and ensure all attendees will have a good day.
How else are we evolving our accessibility services?
We’re in the process of creating an accessibility policy, which will state our commitment to accessibility and the steps we will take to meet accessibility needs on the events we work on. This will benefit our clients in understanding how to implement accessibility services into the event planning process and ensure all attendee needs are considered.
We’ve also partnered with Attitude is Everything, a disabled-led charity that connects disabled people with music and live event industries to improve accessibility, working together on a variety of events last year. Professionals from the charity attended live event we were working on – from music festivals to events for leading property companies – providing a report with feedback and recommendations of how to improve accessibility at future events.
We have worked with like of Southwark Park and Alexa Events to ensure accessibility needs have been met at the festivals including Boiler Room: London, Eastern Electrics, Maiden Voyage and NTS Festival.
Have, have we received any feedback from attendees or clients about any of these services?
The feedback has been really positive: audience members were really complimentary about how accessibility was managed on one client’s social media platforms.
We’re there to ensure the safety of everybody on site, but also to ensure that all attendees have a good time.
We know there are improvements we need to make and forever learning. We do this by asking the attendees for feedback or what changes they want. We feel getting feedback from the source will assist in ensuring we are doing and thinking about the right things.
We Are OPS is an operational management and event safety agency, powered by over 20 years of event industry experience. For more information about accessibility auditing or other OPS services, head to the We Are OPS website.
