festivals held in Victoria Park sign access charter for disabled

Thanks to a partnership project with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, every festival that takes place on London's Victoria Park now has to adhere to Attitude is Everything's Charter of Best Practice as an 'Event Standard'.

The Local Authority have also provided funding to the organisers to train staff and for Deaf and disabled volunteers to assess their events from a Disability Access perspective. As a result, High Voltage, Field Day, Lovebox, Under Age, The Apple Cart and LED – London Electronic Dance - festivals have signed up to the Charter and pledged to improve accessibility to Deaf and disabled music lovers.

Julian Butterfield, Head of Operations at Lovebox said, "We are delighted to have signed up to The Charter of Best Practice. Our disabled customers' feedback to our event plans all generally seem a lot happier with the service we are to provide, and this positive sentiment has circulated and therefore increased the attendance of disabled patrons. Sales of tickets to disabled customers are roughly double what they were in 2010. High Voltage sales are up on 2010 as well. We have also gleaned the added operational benefit of improving our own methodology on disabled access."

The Victoria-Park based festivals join another 35 live music venues and festivals around the country, including Brixton Academy, Wembley Arena, Royal Albert Hall, and Reading and Leeds Festivals, that have pledged to improve their access and work towards the Gold benchmarks. During the process, they create a realistic Action Plan of how they will achieve the three stages of the Charter and make a commitment to go beyond the law and achieve Best Practice. They then share experiences with the network of Charter Venue and Festivals Managers.

As Charter festivals, the latest additions from Victoria Park will continue to receive the support of Attitude is Everything throughout their lifespan - as long as they remain committed to the Charter.

Venues and festivals that sign up to the Charter of Best Practice also thereby agree to be 'mystery shopped' by Attitude is Everything's team of Deaf and disabled gig-goers and musicians, who give feedback on each live music event visited. This feedback enables Attitude is Everything to assess how accessible live music venues and festivals are, as well as examining how they are managed from a customer's perspective. This information is fed back to managers so that they can make improvements. Attitude is Everything also offer Disability Equality Training and undertake Access Audits to advise on changes that may be required.

Pam McCrea, Senior Arts & Events Manager at Tower Hamlets said, "Tower Hamlets Arts and Events are committed to the Charter of Best Practice and have achieved bronze level for the Council run Paradise Gardens event. To further our committed to Best Practice we engaged Attitude is Everything to work with commercial event’s organisers presenting major events in the borough. Attitude is Everything has successfully worked with major event organisers to sign up to the Charter of Best Practice. This has included Attitude providing information, training and action planning sessions, with regular progress meetings and on-call support. The intention is for the events to reach a Bronze level of charter or above during the 2011 festival season. The event organisers have be responsive and have fed back to us how valuable the training and guidance Attitude is Everything provided has been , additionally they have also reported a increase in ticket sales to date from disabled patrons due to the new measures they have been implementing."

Tom Baker and Marcus Weedon, heads of promotions company EatYourOwnEars added "Field Day, The Apple Cart and Underage Festival are delighted to sign up to the Charter of Best Practice. We look forward to working together with Attitude Is Everything to make our festivals accessible to more people."

Ruth Dronfield, Project Assistant for LED, Field Day and Underage Festival's production company, Loud Sound added, "Working with Attitude Is Everything has encouraged us to take a fresh look at the facilities we provide at festivals we manage, helping our clients to put on great shows, accessible to everyone. It has been a very useful and structured process and one we are looking forward to continuing as more of our festival clients sign up to the Charter."

Attitude is Everything's Charter of Best Practice was created in 2000 to assist the music industry in understanding the requirements of Deaf and disabled people at music venues and festivals, building equality into the strategic thinking for events, and fostering a culture of proactively providing an equal experience for disabled people. Divided into three levels – Bronze, Silver and Gold – each one has conditions that must be fulfilled. Live music venues and festivals are expected to work through these levels and aim for the Gold, which is a commitment to achieving Best Practice in Access and Attitude over a period of five years. The ethos of the Charter is that Deaf and disabled people should be able to be as independent as they want to be at live music venues and festivals.

Festivals already signed up include Guilfest, Big Green Gathering, Reading Festival, Leeds Festival, and Latitude.

Continuing their support to Attitude is Everything this year is Festival Republic's Managing Director Melvin Benn is continuing to improve the live experience for Deaf and disabled music lovers by providing a £1000 bursary for Access and Disability Equality Training for smaller or younger festivals to address the requirements of Deaf and disabled festival-goers, performers and staff at this year's UK Festival Awards who have also added disabled access to their award assessment criteria.

Attitude is Everything is a charity organisation that was set up in 2000 in response to the young disabled people's complaints of unfair treatment at live music venues, clubs, and festivals throughout the UK. The Artsline Charity which was the charity's original umbrella organisation realised that the industry was not aware of it's obligations under the Disabilities Discrimination Act and so this project was set up to look at it, and highlight the problems.

The organisation, are in close liaison with several festivals, and have gone into festivals like Glastonbury as stewarding projects in partnership with Oxfam offering specialist stewarding on the disabled viewing platforms, and a presence in the disabled campsites, to give people advice and generally help them out. And also liaise with the festival organisers on the problems disabled people might have.

eFestivals has a guide for disabled festival goers here.

Since it's beginnings Attitude is Everything has over the years made significant steps within the music industry, they've worked in partnership with Mean Fiddler group, which is now Festival Republic, Clear Channel, Fly, and AMG, and they are looking to make more improvements across the country.

eFestivals will have reviews and photographs of last weekend's Lovebox, GuilFest, and Latitude online soon, along with a review of the disabled facilities at this weekend's GuilFest.

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