Tips to Make Music Events & Festivals Accessible

Music events and festivals are lots of fun, bringing the local community and visitors together. They are spaces to enjoy music over hours or days and can give people an escape from reality where they can have fun with family and friends. However, not everyone can enjoy them as they are busy, noisy, bright, and not as accessible to those with disabilities. Many people avoid them and miss out on the fun. But why should they have to? Everyone should be able to enjoy their favourite artists and immerse themselves in music. Use these tips to make music events and festivals accessible for everyone to enjoy.

Think about every disability and cater to them

Any venue and space can be made more accessible. Before you make the area accessible, think about what you need to do for everyone to be able to enjoy the event or festival. It’s best to include many disabilities in your planning phase so that you can hold a highly accessible gig for everyone. Have the right attitude as people with impairments or health conditions are only disabled by the barriers they can encounter in society. You need to take down these barriers, so they are able to get involved.

A great example of this is if someone is in an electric wheelchair, such as the edge 3 stretto power chair, they need to be able to access the venue and navigate around it with ease. So, if the venue entrance has steps, you can place a ramp for them to get in easily. If there’s no ramp, the person can’t get in and are likely to miss out. With an outdoor venue, this can be tricky to overcome as if the weather is bad the place can get muddy which is difficult for wheelchair users to navigate. Find somewhere to lay down flooring, creating a path around to the main spaces that wheelchair users will use.

Offer disabled-friendly spaces and camping

There are multiple ways you can create disabled-friendly spaces throughout the space the event or festival is occurring in. From accessible viewing areas to comfortable accessible camping in festivals, you can transform your space to be more inclusive.

Give accessible seated viewing areas

An accessible seated viewing area is a designated place at a venue where people can sit down with a good view of the stage. The capacity of your venue and type of event can help determine how you provide this. For example, for a music festival, you may set these areas up beforehand while for a large event, you may seek to support someone to get a seat on demand. Ensure to show the information clearly to visitors and venue staff so people know they have a space that accommodates their needs.

Viewing platforms

Just like a seated viewing area, these provide an accessible area to view the stage. These are used typically for festivals so disabled customers can easily and comfortably see stages. Ensure these platforms provide an accessible toilet too and some food and refreshments.

Accessible toilets

Whether you are holding a music event or festival, you need to have accessible toilets around your venue. Ensure these toilets can’t be accessed by the general public and that only the people who need them can use them. You could lock the toilets and provide a key to disabled customers or have a passcode for the toilets that is given to the right people. This ensures that anyone with accessibility needs can easily and quickly use the toilet without waiting.

Have medical and welfare care

Having a designated space with professionals on hand to look after people is vital to be more accessible. This space should be somewhere anyone can get to if needed. It gives those with accessibility issues a fair opportunity to seek medical and welfare care in case they feel unwell or have a serious health problem. Alongside this, have plenty of professionals dotted around the venue to be on hand if anything occurs and someone can’t get to the designated space.

Offer disabled camping

For festivals, it is crucial to provide a designated accessible camping area that no one else can access. Ensure this is set up not far from the main stage and in a place where people with accessibility needs can easily access it. To prevent the general public from coming in, have event staff manning the entrance of the campsite and provide those who need this camping with a special wristband. Making sure no one else can access this allows people with disabilities and conditions to create a community together and potentially make friends.

In this campsite have mobility scooter hire, accessible toilets and bathrooms, free charging ports, fridges for medicines, food and drink for everyone to enjoy together.

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