The accessibility problem at festivals!

The days of dancing in a field at a festival are behind us. Thanks to coronavirus, they’ve taken a virtual shift – leaving us dancing in our living rooms instead.

 

Online options have been requested for a long time by people with disabilities. But according to some, it’s been frequently ignored or deemed as impossible. So why has it taken a pandemic for online access to be made available?

 

35-year-old wheelchair user, Fuchsia Carter feels like “things can only be accessible once non-disabled people are inconvenienced” and says she’s requested online versions of events around 600 times.

 

“I never heard back at all. […] I would always be sent to a website that normally just said, we have platforms and disabled loos. As if that was the only thing they could provide.”

 

Carter explains how accessibility goes further than just a toilet – and things like wheelchair access, sign language and virtual platforms all make the experience easier.

 

Whilst many festivals have facilities and disability schemes – this doesn’t help the people who physically can’t attend the event. For some people, the only way they can enjoy a festival is through a screen at home.

 

Though some mainstream festivals like Glastonbury, Reading and Leeds and The Isle of Wight are all shown on TV – a large portion is still not available for at-home-viewing.

 

“That still requires you to have a TV licence which many disabled people don’t have. Again because of [the] access issue. They could have put it on YouTube and you could pay to watch what you wanted, that would be amazing,” says Fuchsia.

             

Leonard Cheshire is an organisation which helps disabled people to find opportunities and fights for their basic rights.

 

Nick Bishop has cerebral palsy and is a full-time wheelchair user, who works in communications at the charity. Attending a festival isn’t an option for him due to a lack of accessibility. And he isn’t the only one.

 

“Attending a festival far from home is tricky and sleeping on the floor in a tent is simply impossible. It’s hard to find fully accessible camping options for people using a large powerchair. Especially at outdoor events, accessible toilets can be too small; this is not something I want to find when I get to a festival.”

 

He suggests that a virtual element could solve this problem: “People watching online could pay for a virtual ticket, and still get to enjoy the music.”

Written by: Megan Milstead