1. Plan Ahead

So you’ve decided to hold your own event, or you’ve been approached by a client who’s asked you to plan for them – congratulations! This is a great opportunity to showcase your technical and personal skills. 

It’s important to consider from the very beginning of a project what barriers could impact your attendee’s experience. Some questions to ask yourself during your initial planning stage might include:

• What would stop people from participating? 
• Is the venue accessible? Are there physical barriers that would impact attendees with mobility issues?
• Are you able to provide assistance for attendees who are deaf or hard of hearing, such as sign language interpreters?
• Have you considered the provision of any food or drinks, such as ensuring that menus are available in accessible formats and providing options for attendees with food allergies or dietary restrictions?

2. Event Timings

As part of your pre-planning for the event, take a look over the running order and breaks between sessions or performances. Questions to consider include:

• How will this impact attendees who have mobility issues, and may take longer to travel between rooms? 
• Have you left a reasonable amount of time during breaks for attendees accessing bathroom facilities?
• Have you left a reasonable amount of time for attendees to access food and water?

3. Site Visit

A crucial part of answering all these questions accurately is being able to inspect the site during a visit. It’s a great idea to walk around the space in the mindset of an attendee, from arrival, to during the event, and leaving. This will help you to visualise the accessibility, looking for:

• Any car parks or drop off points that are close to the venue
• Ramps, stairs or lifts to access the venue – is this the same as the main entrance, or is there a specific easily-accessible entrance?
• Ramps, stairs or lifts to access the event room when inside
• Are handrails available for all unsteady or inclined flooring?

• Any doors that can be left open, and if some have to remain closed e.g. fire exits
• Are there disability-friendly bathrooms that are easily accessible to the main event room?
• The emergency evacuation route
• The venue’s policy on allowing service dogs into an event

4. Seating Arrangements

For any size event, providing seating arrangements is a core part of the room preparation. It’s essential to make sure that seats are accessible, and that they are not segregated from the rest of the audience. Visibility should not be compromised, as well as the sound quality from the stage.

You should consider the route of access around the room and venue for wheelchair users. A great example of this is award ceremonies, where people will be getting up from their seats and travelling to the stage and back throughout the event. Can people with mobility issues or a wheelchair move around the room with ease and access the stage, or the backstage area?

5. Provide Assistive Technology

Event technology has the ability to provide incredible experiences for every attendee, and has made vast improvements to enhance the experience for those with visual and auditory impairments. Please see the Visual and Audio Considerations over the page for more information!

6. Train Staff

Ensuring that technicians, engineers and stage managers are trained to support attendees with visual, auditory and sensory impairments, including invisible illnesses, is a vital part of preparation in our day-to-day practices. 

Staff must be able to recognise and respond to those who need extra assistance in a respectful and swift manner, listening to their concerns and providing support wherever possible. 

They must be able to communicate effectively with clients and attendees in regards to their requirements for accessibility, and provide different options for support through technical and logistical considerations.

7. Provide Clear Information

Finally, communication is key!

After assessing the venue and considering the technical and logistical impact for attendees, it’s important to clearly advertise the methods you have implemented to prepare attendees prior to the event. 

Make sure to highlight parking arrangements, the venue’s step, ramp and lift availability, and any sign language interpretation or audio captioning that will be offered. 

It is important to provide an outlet for attendees to reach out to you to ask questions about the venue and their own requirements, and to make suggestions that would improve their experience.

Visual Considerations

There are a few different technical options available to provide visual assistance to attendees, including:

• High quality, 4k resolution projectors such as our Panasonic 10k
• High quality television screens that can be placed around the room so that all attendees have a clear, unobstructed view. You can view our full range of 4K HD LED TVs here.
• Laptops for viewing material in close range 

Alongside these technical choices, there are some incredibly simple design choices to make when providing visual material for an event that could vastly enhance the experience for attendees with visual impairments, whether that be a video, presentation slides or graphics. Some of these include:

• Choosing the correct colour contrast to enhance the image or text and reduce eye strain – you can read some great examples of easy to read colour pairings here – https://veroniiiica.com/high-contrast-color-schemes-low-vision/ 
• Using large, bold fonts e.g. sans serif, as this can be easier to read in comparison to other texts

If possible send out any reading materials, presentation slides or videos to attendees in advance, make them accessible online, or provide large printout copies to each table.

If you are presenting, it is also helpful to describe out loud to the audience any images, graphs or visuals being used in your presentation.

Audio Considerations

There are also different audio options that can be tailored to improve the experience for hearing impaired attendees, including:

• Using a  Hearing Loop – this is the easiest way to ensure attendees that use a hearing aid will have direct access to the audio of the speaker and any music or video audio
• Provide attendees with a sign language interpreter for the performance or presentation
• Provide captioning for videos

A vital part of all these considerations is that they are easily accessible to attendees, and easy to use. They must be readily available to provide to all participants on request – our technicians are more than happy to walk clients and attendees through this process to ensure the event is as smooth running as possible.

If you have any recommendations that are not included above or would like to make any changes, please feel free to contact us at hire@fireflyav.co.uk

Photo credit: @SWpix