Latest / Event Industry News Podcast / Closing the Accessibility Gap in Events

Transcript

Closing the Accessibility Gap in Events · Event Industry News Podcast

0:00
The Event Industry News Podcast is sponsored by Prezent Communications.
0:04
Prezent provides broadcast-quality live, hybrid, and virtual event
0:09
production trusted by organizations where reliability really matters.
0:13
From corporate town halls and conferences to high-profile live streams,
0:17
they design and deliver fully resilient systems that work first
0:27
Hello everybody and welcome along to the Event Industry News Podcast
0:31
with me, James Dixon, wishing you all a very good morning,
0:33
afternoon, or evening, whenever or wherever you tune into
0:37
today's podcast from. And as you can probably see straight
0:42
off the bat at the start of today's podcast, I'm not in my usual surroundings,
0:45
sat on an upright piano at home with a dog sat on the sofa behind
0:49
me, which is where I often find, and over the last few years I've mostly
0:53
found myself recording these podcasts. I am really excited to
0:57
say that we are in the fantastic surrounds of the ICC Wales
1:01
down in Newport. The Event Industry News team came down
1:05
here yesterday. We've had a lovely experience touring some of the venue,
1:09
staying over last night, treated to a very nice dinner, and we've
1:13
got the pleasure of recording some episodes of the podcast here at the ICC Wales
1:17
today. So thank you very much to all the team for facilitating
1:20
this and having Event Industry News along to record some of our podcasts.
1:24
So on today's episode, we're going to be talking accessibility,
1:29
closing the accessibility gap in events.
1:31
Accessibility is increasingly part of
1:35
the events conversation, but the experience of disabled delegates suggests that
1:39
there is still a significant gap between intention and reality.
1:42
I'm joined on the podcast today by Dr. Shani Danda, first of
1:46
all, and Amy Phillips, the Sales Director from
1:51
ICC Wales. So Amy, first of all, I'll come to you and say thank you
1:53
for hosting us here at the venue, it's fabulous. Tell us a little
1:56
bit about yourself, what you do here. Okay, thanks, Ciarán. So yeah, as you said,
2:00
I'm the Sales Director here at ICC Wales, so I manage the sales team and
2:04
I'm responsible for our sales strategy. And we also commissioned the
2:08
Access All Areas report in conjunction with the Business of Events, and we involved Sharni
2:12
from the start to include her expert opinion along the way.
2:16
Fabulous. And Sharni, welcome along to the podcast. Again, give us a
2:19
little bit of background and some context as to who you are,
2:22
what you do, and why you're here today. Sure. So I'm an accessibility specialist,
2:26
so I work with different businesses and brands across all
2:29
different industries and sectors and help them to make everything more
2:33
accessible, either for their customers, their employees, or their overall business
2:38
strategy. But my background and career started in events.
2:41
I studied a degree in event management and spent 10 years in
2:45
the industry working in-house and agency
2:49
side. And yeah, I've always been passionate about events,
2:54
not only from working in the industry myself, but going to
2:57
them and trying to enjoy events too.
3:01
I always say to guests that come on the podcast who are doing something now
3:04
but have a background in agency and corporate, in actual events,
3:07
hands-on event management, that that gives people a very good sort of
3:11
contextual starting place, that you have that basic understanding of
3:15
how events work. Because we get a lot of people and experts in
3:18
any industry telling us how we should be doing things, but really, unless somebody
3:22
has got a background in doing that and understands the pain points of people organizing
3:27
events, it's difficult to provide that expert opinion.
3:30
Yeah, you need to understand the operations behind it,
3:34
the conflicting priorities, the the budget
3:37
constraints. Yeah, you absolutely have to understand the
3:41
parameters in which you're operating in and all the things that
3:45
are involved in that. Absolutely. Which leads us on to, I suppose, the basis of
3:50
today's conversation on the podcast, which is this
3:54
report and research that's been commissioned. Amy, I'm going to come to you first
3:58
a little bit to sort of explain what the report is and ICC Wales'
4:02
involvement and place within that research? Yeah, absolutely.
4:06
So the report was born through just curiosity really,
4:10
and wanting to learn and develop. So the report essentially
4:14
looks at what venues say they're doing, but also the delegate
4:19
experience. So we were looking at sort of bridging that gap between,
4:23
you know, what venues are saying and what delegates' experiences are. So for
4:27
us, it was really interesting to look across the breadth of the report.
4:30
So kind of not just looking at ramps and physical
4:34
accessibility, but looking at neurodiversity as well,
4:38
looking at digital accessibility. So yeah,
4:42
we've learned a lot ourselves from the report, and I think it's been a really
4:45
good tool for the industry to use to learn and improve.
4:48
Could I just ask, how many venues were contacted as
4:53
part of the research? Do you know that sort of figure off the top of
4:56
your heads? Yes, I think it was in excess of 100 venues.
5:00
Right, okay, so we're talking about quite a breadth and of all sort of varieties
5:04
as well. Do they all fall into one category or? No, it was a breadth,
5:07
so from convention centres to hotels to smaller venues. So I think,
5:11
you know, we're a purpose-built convention centre, so lucky in a
5:15
way to be built with accessibility from the start. However, not all venues have
5:20
that luxury, so there's, you know, historic buildings, listed buildings, of course,
5:24
where things can be a little bit more challenging. So yeah, survey went
5:28
out to a breadth of different venues. And the
5:32
sort of headline stat that I pulled out of the information that I was given
5:35
before today's podcast was, while venues
5:38
are reporting significant investment in accessibility,
5:41
93% of disabled delegates surveyed said
5:45
that they still encounter barriers when attending events.
5:48
That's not just a majority, that's,
5:51
you know, and everybody that was surveyed is still saying, look, it could be better.
5:55
It's never going to be perfect, or is it?
5:58
No, no, I don't think anything's perfect,
6:01
and there's actually no such thing as fully accessible because what
6:06
could be accessible to one person could be completely inaccessible
6:10
to another. But that's not a reason for us not to care about it.
6:14
There are lots of reasons why we should care about accessibility,
6:17
but when we look at that stat, um,
6:21
what we learned is that many people are still struggling with
6:24
different barriers. So things like inaccessible layouts,
6:28
overstimulating environments, uh,
6:31
staff that perhaps haven't had disability awareness training,
6:36
uh, inaccessible toilets. So quite simple
6:41
and easy to solve things, I would say.
6:44
But when we talk about accessibility, what we're really talking about is
6:49
disabled people having an equivalent user experience to non-disabled
6:53
people. Like, nobody has to be an expert in different people's
6:58
medical conditions or different people's health conditions. We manage that
7:02
with those professionals. What we should be focusing
7:06
on is what are the barriers, whether it's a venue or an event,
7:10
and how can we reduce and remove them. So the
7:15
venues, the sort of quote that I gave out there from my notes,
7:18
while venues report significant investment in accessibility,
7:22
significant investment again is ambiguous
7:25
in some respects, isn't it? Because if they're starting from ground zero as
7:29
a venue, if they've not really addressed the topic previously,
7:32
significant investment might still only sort of scratch the
7:36
surface a little bit of what they could be doing in order to be,
7:40
you know, fully inclusive, if we can use that term.
7:43
Again, when it comes to the investment that's being made, Amy,
7:46
by those venues, was there a disparity and were you able to actually
7:50
look at what that type of investment represented amongst some of the venues?
7:54
Yeah, I think it's hard to pinpoint across the board, but it can be anything
7:58
from investment in time and training and even
8:01
having internal working groups if you haven't got that
8:05
budget to go out and pay for expert training. I think everybody
8:09
needs to have a starting point, and I think everybody's starting point is very different.
8:13
So yeah, I think in terms of investment, it could mean a lot of things.
8:16
You know, in terms of— yeah, but it's an interesting point where
8:21
you raise about training and the
8:25
idea that it's sort of investment in a venue from an
8:28
accessibility point of view has to be in terms of its physical structure and,
8:32
you know, that the actual infrastructure of the building— investment
8:35
can be just in the people that run and operate a venue so that they
8:38
have a better understanding, I guess. Yeah, absolutely, and,
8:42
you know, the different knowledge that you can gain can lead you to doing very
8:46
free or low-cost changes as well.
8:50
So there's a company called AccessAble, and they,
8:54
um, they're like the TripAdvisor for
8:57
the disability community, right? So if you want to visit somewhere,
9:00
they audit places. They'll, they will have different pictures
9:03
of the layouts, how many toilets or steps there are. You get the gist.
9:07
Yeah. Um, they did some research and they found that 95% of
9:12
disabled people research a venue before
9:16
they go and visit it, and 96% of disabled people say when
9:21
they have that information on accessibility, it influences their
9:25
decision to attend or not. Yeah, so one of my biggest gripes,
9:29
just, just me as an attendee myself, and it's something I
9:33
face all the time, is that when you go on an event's page
9:37
or perhaps a venue's website, is there's no dedicated page
9:40
for accessibility. Accessibility. So yeah, I might
9:44
know that I want to go to this event, but I don't know if it's
9:46
going to be accessible. And then you have to contact someone,
9:50
hope they get back to you, hope they get back to you in time.
9:54
You're putting a lot of burden on the attendee when we want to make
9:58
it a really frictionless process for everybody.
10:01
I'm really pleased that you've raised that because it was actually in my mind a
10:04
few minutes ago to ask about where the accessibility journey begins for
10:08
an attendee. And it's okay having an
10:11
all-singing, all-dancing venue that maybe ticks a lot of good boxes and you've done
10:14
that investment, but based on what Shani's just said, Amy,
10:18
if you're not communicating that to attendees before
10:21
they even come to the venue, your on-site investment is almost irrelevant.
10:25
So that accessibility journey has to start with the— with what
10:29
you can put out as a venue as well in advance, I guess. Yeah,
10:31
absolutely. It needs to start at inquiry stage or even before
10:35
you've had the inquiry. You need to be telling people you can't assume that people
10:39
just know what you've got, and as I said, every venue is at a different
10:42
stage, so that can vary. So I mean, from the report,
10:45
there was a stat that 78% of event planners weren't confident
10:49
in knowing their disabled attendees' needs, so I think there's a
10:53
real opportunity there for venues to help and be that
10:57
starting point, you know, this is what we do, include that information in your proposals,
11:01
on your website, and give them that starting point that they can go out
11:05
to their delegates with. I've said this a few times on the podcast that,
11:09
you know, when we look at event organizers, some event
11:13
organizers and agencies may organize multiple events every year,
11:17
but a lot of events, particularly in sort of business sectors and industry,
11:20
there might be annual events, annual conventions, annual conferences, a trade
11:24
show. So they might have that experience once a year of organizing the event,
11:27
whereas as a venue, venues are doing this day in,
11:30
day out. It's their bread and butter, and Do you feel, I don't know if
11:34
this is maybe a question for you, Sharni, that maybe event organizers don't
11:38
access the expertise of their venues as much as they could be
11:42
doing if they are working with a good venue? Potentially, but I think each
11:46
party has a responsibility, but I do see it as a bit
11:50
of a push-pull relationship. So I'm
11:54
sure Amy can speak to this, but if I was approaching
11:58
a venue and I didn't talk about accessibility, I would hope that
12:03
the venue would encourage me as the client to think about it
12:06
and to talk about it, or vice versa. I know,
12:10
you know, some venues will only get certain business because
12:14
they are an accessible venue or because they've done so much work to
12:19
show that they value disabled people that certain events will always go
12:23
to those types of venues. So it's been pushed from the client's perspective.
12:27
Yeah. And Also, we must talk about the fact
12:31
that there are so many different laws and guidelines
12:36
that say that, you know, whether you're a
12:39
public venue, whether you're an event organizer,
12:44
what you do has to be accessible because if you don't, you could be
12:48
in breach of different laws. And, you know, that doesn't
12:52
just mean physical accessibility, it also now includes digital accessibility
12:56
with the introduction of the European Accessibility Act.
13:00
So, but this isn't, this isn't a legal podcast
13:04
where I'm not going to get into it. But I urge others to go and
13:07
look into it because so there is a legal obligation, but there's also the commercial
13:11
perspective. As an industry, people are leaving money
13:15
on the table. And it's an industry that, you know,
13:19
does need more support that probably could do with more
13:24
people coming to their events and venues. But disabled people globally have
13:28
a spending power of £18 trillion.
13:31
In the UK alone, it's a huge amount of money that's potentially, like you said,
13:35
being left on the table. And in the UK alone,
13:38
1 in 4 of us are disabled. So,
13:42
you know, yes, there's a moral obligation,
13:45
but there's absolutely a commercial perspective here. We've touched on it
13:49
briefly, but something I wanted to ask you today is, is there still a
13:54
kind of, I'm trying to, a muddled view of what accessibility
13:59
means and do a lot of venues of any description, not just
14:03
event venues but, you know, high street shops, any public area,
14:06
is there still a muddled view that accessibility is giving
14:09
somebody physical access? So ramps for wheelchair
14:13
users, handrails in toilets, you know, are we still guilty
14:17
of thinking that accessibility are physical requirements and not understanding really
14:21
what accessibility means in 2026? Yeah, do you want to go first?
14:24
Yeah, I think so. There's a lot of uncertainty, and I think that came out
14:28
of the report as well. So I think, you know, venues,
14:32
as I said, can help by giving this information, using examples as well
14:35
of things that their clients have done. We had a conference
14:39
called SQLBits, which is Europe's largest data conference, and their organizers
14:44
really wanted to make everything as inclusive as possible. So they would project
14:49
some of the breakout rooms onto partition walls instead of everybody sat
14:53
in a theater style. They could sit on beanbags, the lights were lower, they could
14:57
tune into that as well. They'd have snacks everywhere for
15:01
people and lunch boxes as well, so people could take that and
15:05
they didn't have to eat in a crowded space. They could eat wherever they wanted
15:08
in the venue. And something that I've heard you say many times is what's good
15:12
for disabled people is good for everybody. Yeah. And that is just so true.
15:15
Like, I've been at many conferences and used the quiet rooms to just go
15:18
in and reset. And go back out, you know, with food,
15:22
taking it away and having that opportunity not to be in a crowded
15:26
space. So you're so right when you say that, and I think that's really stuck
15:29
with me. Yeah, please, please expand that because I've not come
15:33
across that before. Okay, yeah, so to give some context,
15:39
wheelchair users are actually a minority in the disability community
15:44
because 70 to 80% of disabled people have
15:48
non-visible health conditions and impairments.
15:52
But I think the way in which as a society we
15:56
view disability is not that great.
15:59
If you just look at what comes out in the media,
16:03
the government, the narrative's not brilliant at the moment.
16:08
We're quite scapegoated for a lot of things happening politically.
16:13
You know, a lot of people may think that the disability
16:17
community are a bit work-shy, or just if you read the
16:21
headlines. Of course, none of that's true. Um, so if
16:26
that's all you— if that's all you're exposed to about a
16:30
certain community, you are going to have certain assumptions
16:34
and bias. Like, we all have bias, right? So yes,
16:38
coming back to the question, I think there is a big— there are big assumptions
16:41
made. But as Amy mentioned,
16:45
accessibility benefits everybody, and many of us don't understand
16:49
that so many of the things that we use today,
16:53
everyday things, objects like an electric
16:56
toothbrush, that was originally designed for a disabled person,
17:01
but because it benefits so many other people,
17:04
everybody else uses it too. And it's not sold to you as, oh, this is
17:08
for disabled people, but So many things like that exist.
17:11
Um, uh, captions, they were created for
17:15
deaf people, but they also help so many other people as well.
17:19
If you're, uh, dyslexic, if, if you're in a noisy environment,
17:23
you're watching something on silent. Um, a bendable
17:27
straw that was created for a disabled person to have a drink.
17:31
Everybody likes using a straw, you know. There's so many things,
17:35
and it's when I think about it as well, you don't— I guess you don't
17:38
necessarily have to have a diagnosed condition or tick a box.
17:42
You never know what day somebody is having. So when we talk
17:46
about, you know, maybe lunch boxes that you could pick up and go to a
17:50
quiet space instead, it doesn't necessarily have to be for somebody who has a neurodiverse
17:55
box that's ticked or a condition. It could be somebody who's just having a really
17:58
bad day, stuff going off in their personal life, and they just— they've
18:01
got to go to this event for work, but maybe they just want a quiet
18:04
space for lunch. So it's— I guess of it is not just
18:09
about giving people who have a condition or a box that's ticked
18:13
that opportunity. Like you said, it's opening the door for everybody to potentially access these
18:17
type of facilities, and it's getting younger people into events as well
18:21
because, you know, events can be really overwhelming. Going in, somebody may have not attended
18:25
an event before and they're thinking, whoa, there's all of these people here. So they've
18:29
got that information in advance. Actually, if I feel a bit overwhelmed, this is where
18:32
I can go, or even this is I can talk to these are the measures
18:35
in place instead of just feeling a bit stuck. So, you know, we want
18:39
to be as inclusive as possible, and I think organisers do as well.
18:42
It's just working with lots of different partners
18:47
on larger events, certainly, to make that happen. I've underlined in
18:51
my notes the word budgets because, you know,
18:54
whether we like it or not, there is still— there are still conversations at every
18:59
event within every event organizing team about the budgets,
19:02
you know, oh, can we afford to do this? And questions
19:06
being asked at registration about, do you have any specific requirements,
19:10
please get in touch with us. Are we still at a point where you feel
19:13
that there is still very much an obligation on the attendee to have to contact
19:18
the organizer or the venue to say, I have a requirement, can you cater
19:21
for it? You know, are we making progress in that respect?
19:25
But I look at things like captions, for example,
19:28
at conferences, you know, they're often still deployed
19:32
because there has been a requirement made to the organizer by an attendee
19:36
saying, I need this, rather than it being put in as necessary.
19:39
Where do we stand with that side of it? I think it depends on the
19:43
nature of event and how well the event organizers understand
19:48
their audience. So there will be some organizers that know
19:52
they will absolutely have certain people in the audience who will have certain
19:55
requirements. So let's say, well, I'm organizing my event now,
19:59
the Accessible Event Show, so we know that there will be people
20:03
in the audience who will need British Sign Language interpreters,
20:06
that will need sign language, and for those people joining the
20:10
live stream online, they have the option to request different language translations
20:15
as well. So we have already booked that, we aren't waiting
20:19
for people to tell us that they need it because we're very certain that
20:23
those requirements are going to be needed,
20:26
um, because we understand our audience.
20:28
So I think, but I think
20:32
what we do need to change is what needs to be standard. Like captions have
20:36
to be a standard. It's so accessible now. Yeah,
20:40
it is. And low cost. It is. Yeah. You know,
20:43
you can have live human-generated captions, but they're,
20:47
you know, AI captions are getting better all the time. My personal preference
20:51
is always human, but as you say, it comes down to budget.
20:55
And I think everybody should have a line item for accessibility
20:59
in their overall event budget, because if
21:03
you don't, I think it's a bit of a failure on your part, because what
21:07
you're essentially saying is, I don't expect there to be any accessibility
21:11
requests. And how can that be true if 1 in 4 of us
21:16
are disabled. Absolutely. And I said,
21:19
somebody asked me years ago at an event I was speaking at, a long,
21:23
long time ago, and it was when event apps were really coming into the marketplace
21:27
and every event, oh, we need an app. And somebody actually asked a question and
21:30
said, well, you know, I don't have a huge amount of budget at the moment.
21:34
I've got a choice between developing an app that's compatible with
21:37
iOS on iPhone or with Android. Which one do you
21:41
think I should go with? And I said, well,
21:44
it's like saying, well, I'm only going to do an event and say only men
21:48
can register, only women can register, or only this type of person can register.
21:51
You're effectively making a choice then to alienate 50% of your
21:55
audience, essentially. And I guess
21:59
accessibility has some parallels to that kind of analogy that, you know,
22:03
if you're not making those decisions proactively and you're waiting for people to
22:06
come to you, they could have been put off already. By knowing
22:10
that it's not going to be accessible. I dare say there'll be people out there,
22:13
quite rightly, who say, well, why should it have to fall on me?
22:16
Why is it my obligation to contact to do that? I'm just going to not
22:20
go. And it goes back to what you were saying about the amount of money
22:22
that is potentially being missed out on by people who you will never know.
22:26
Yeah, you never know the people who decided not to come to your event because,
22:29
yeah, you put a barrier there in the first place. And as disabled people,
22:32
like, we have to do this for everything, for every part of our
22:36
lives. So when it comes to an event that is, let's say
22:40
it's optional, let's say it's not a work event, you don't bother
22:44
because you're so exhausted from doing it in every other
22:48
part of your life. And I recently shared a post on LinkedIn,
22:52
um, saying that I fall in this cycle of,
22:55
obviously I love events, I want to go to them,
22:59
uh, I book it, you know, share my accessibility
23:04
requirements, perhaps it didn't go so well, then I stopped going,
23:08
I get annoyed and I think they don't value me, I'm not going to give
23:10
them my money, then I miss it and then I do
23:14
it again and then I fall into this cycle and it's not nice.
23:18
No, I should be able to enjoy events too. Absolutely. Are you,
23:23
as a venue, Amy, working on this report and
23:26
seeing some of this research, I've, in my experience
23:30
of walking around here just this morning and yesterday afternoon as well, I've clocked
23:34
things that clearly, you know, decisions in terms of the infrastructure and
23:38
the layout and the building of the venue, but have you
23:41
been able to actually enhance further what you can offer here through
23:46
what you've learned in the report? Yeah, absolutely, and it's looking beyond
23:49
the sort of physical venue, it's looking at
23:53
that information in advance. So, you know, we've improved our
23:56
accessibility webpage, but we're also looking at doing videos now.
24:00
So videos from the train station, from the bus stop, and having
24:04
a walk around to the venue to actually show those things.
24:07
So this is where you register, this is the quiet room, the multi-faith room,
24:11
this is where you go for lunch. So it's, it's all of these different things
24:14
just to make people feel more confident in advance, you know, the car
24:18
park and these are where the disabled spaces are, but this is where the lift
24:22
is, so, and these are the dimensions of the lift as well. So it's just
24:26
making sure you put all of that information out. So that is something that we're
24:30
working on now, and to have on our website and to be able to share
24:33
with our audiences. And that strikes me as something that's a quick and easy win
24:36
for a venue, because if you go back, you know, 20, 25 years, if you
24:40
wanted to make a video of how to get into the car park,
24:43
where to park, where the lift is, etc., you'd have to get a company
24:47
in with cameras and filming, then you'd have to go off and edit and all
24:49
the rest of it. Somebody in a team now in a venue could go with
24:53
their phone and walk that route and do like a time-lapse video or something
24:57
of that. It's so easy to generate really usable content that could benefit people,
25:02
and if you think about, you know, people who suffer from dyslexia, for example,
25:06
reading directions and written instructions on how to do
25:10
something could be a real struggle for them, whereas a 30-second video could
25:13
convert— everyone learns differently, so there are quite a lot of
25:17
things that we can do actually if we break it down. And you can never
25:21
give someone too much information. It's better to give too much than
25:25
too little. And, you know, with, with things
25:29
like videos, they're brilliant tools, but again, we have to make sure they're accessible.
25:33
There must be captions on there. I would say go further and,
25:37
uh, put sign language on there, and if you can, audio describe them
25:41
as well, because then you've hit the most amount of accessibility
25:45
just in one piece of evergreen content. That you, unless your event,
25:49
like a venue massively changes, which I'm sure it's not very likely
25:53
to, then that's, you know, a piece of content that you can use at
25:56
every event that can stay on your website. You can pop
26:00
on socials as well. So many ways to repurpose this content too.
26:04
And for the first time in these podcasts that we're recording here today, I'm gonna
26:09
hit the AI buzzer and say that everything that you've described there in terms of
26:13
adding and how to enhance a video, with some of the AI tools that we've
26:16
got available to us nowadays, those tasks are actually very straightforward,
26:20
much more so than they would have been a decade ago, aren't they? To add
26:23
the captions, the audio descriptions, we've got tools available to us that actually can speed
26:28
up the process and enhance it a little bit further. I dare say you're probably
26:31
using, you know, some of those tools on a day-to-day basis, Amy. Yeah,
26:35
absolutely, and I mean, we've got a great marketing team in-house who are providing
26:39
all of these assets for us, so So we're very lucky there. But yeah,
26:43
I think it's just building confidence in the venue. So I think, you know,
26:46
back to the report saying venues are saying they're doing these things, but actually that's
26:49
not what delegates are experiencing. And that starts from before you've actually
26:53
set foot in the venue, before you've kind of signed up to go.
26:57
That information needs to be available. Absolutely. And I mean,
27:01
that's a good final thought from a venue perspective to sort of start
27:05
wrapping up today. But Shani, I was going to come to you finally just to
27:09
ask, you know, in terms of when you reflect on the research that's been conducted,
27:13
the statistics that you've referenced in the podcast today,
27:16
is this now going to be an ongoing process? Are you going to revisit this
27:20
and look to go, you know, on an annual basis back to these venues and
27:23
organizers? What's the plan for the report going forward?
27:26
Yeah, just to give context of the report,
27:30
it's a landmark report. We've never really had an understanding
27:35
of accessibility in the industry like this ever before,
27:38
and for me personally, as someone who's worked in the industry, loves the going
27:42
to events, I found it extremely validating because
27:46
sometimes you think these things are only happening to you as an individual, but now
27:50
we get to see it from an industry and a community perspective.
27:54
So there are plans to, to go back out there
27:58
and to see if there has been any improvement, because within the report there
28:02
are lots of recommendations for people as well. You know, these are all free to
28:06
access. And if I may, I just
28:10
wanted to urge people to redefine
28:13
what their measure of success is when it comes to events. We often
28:19
look at success in different ways. It could be X amount of people,
28:22
it could be X amount of revenue, but actually,
28:27
is your event accessible? I think that should be part of a success
28:30
factor as well. Absolutely.
28:34
Could I just ask, if people are listening or watching this today and they want
28:37
to find out more, they want to— they've listened to this and they think,
28:39
actually, I'd like to do some of my own research. Can we give them a
28:42
few pointers in the right direction? Amy,
28:45
I'll come to you first of all. Is there anything that you can sort of
28:48
point the podcast followers in the right direction of relevant to
28:51
today's conversation? Yeah, absolutely. Well, the Access All Areas report, of course, so that
28:55
can be downloaded on the ICC Wales website, and that
28:58
gives just a huge array of opportunities
29:02
to venues to see what they can implement, and some are quick,
29:06
easy fixes, and some are you know,
29:09
will cost or, you know, will take a little bit longer, but you can
29:13
create your journey from the recommendations in the reports.
29:17
Excellent. And Sharni, any advice for people tuning
29:21
in today? Where can they go? What good resources
29:25
are out there for them? Yeah, so definitely the report, and I would say work
29:29
with experts in accessibility as well. You'll only get so far on
29:33
your own, but like we do with all the other things that we you know,
29:37
all the other areas, I don't know, like health and safety or building management,
29:41
we work with experts in those spaces. So if you want
29:45
to do it and get it right, work with experts. I'm one.
29:50
And also please look up the Accessible Event Show.
29:54
We believe as the co-founders it's the world's
29:57
only event that teaches event professionals how to make their
30:01
events accessible. And it's going to be taking place
30:05
on the 29th of October in Wembley in London.
30:08
It's free to attend in person and online, so it's just theaccessibleeventshow.co.uk.
30:14
Fabulous, and we very much appreciate both of you taking the time to talk
30:18
about this subject and join us on the podcast today. We've been joined by Dr.
30:21
Shani Danda and Amy Phillips, the ICC Wales Sales Director, on the
30:25
podcast today talking about closing the accessibility gap in
30:29
events. Thank you very much for tuning in today. Thanks very much again
30:33
to our hosts for today's podcast, the ICC Wales. Please do make sure that
30:37
if you've listened to today's podcast on your podcast platform that you go over to
30:42
eventindustrynews.com where you can check out video versions of all of the podcasts as well
30:45
as all the news features, special supplements that's on the website, as well as the
30:49
supplier directory. If you work in the events industry and you're looking for a product,
30:52
service, or supplier, chances are you'll find it on the A to Z supplier directory
30:56
on eventindustrynews.com. Thanks very much again to my guests today. Thanks very
31:00
much to our hosts for looking after us, and we'll see you on the next
31:03
edition of the Event Industry News Podcast.