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Business News Live Business
Attitude Is Everything and Independent Venue Week collaborate to increase accessibility of venues and shows
By Chris Cooke | Published on Tuesday 2 February 2021
Music charity Attitude Is Everything has announced a new alliance with Independent Venue Week that will see the two organisations work with and support independent promoters around the UK to help them ensure their shows and venues are more accessible for disabled and deaf music-makers.
Part of AIE’s Next Stage initiative, the alliance will begin with a workshop next month in which participating promoters will discuss how they currently engage with disabled artists and where extra support is needed. Collaborative training and resources will then be developed between these promoters and artists from the Next Stage network over the next year, ensuring that Independent Venue Week 2022 is accessible as possible.
Research undertaken by AIE in 2019 demonstrated that there was work to be done to make the UK’s network of venues and festivals as accessible as possible. That includes promoters simply understanding what kinds of support music-makers may need, and then communicating that they are ready and able to provide that support.
According to AIE’s 2019 survey “70% of artists with access requirements had withheld details of a health condition or impairment due to being worried that doing so would cause problems and impact a relationship with a promoter, venue or festival. As a result, two in three have compromised their health or wellbeing to perform live”.
Announcing the latest tie up with Independent Venue Week, AIE’s Rich Legate says: “This campaign is going to be a hugely positive and beneficial collaboration between promoters and artists, and aims to enrich our future live music landscape. Following the results of our 2019 Next Stage survey we know that many artists with access requirements face challenges disclosing their health condition or impairment. We want to take the burden away and it’s really exciting to be tackling this in partnership with Independent Venue Week”.
Meanwhile, Independent Venue Week’s Chloe Ward adds: “We have worked with Attitude Is Everything for a number of years across their different projects and initiatives and are really chuffed to be working with them on the Next Stage project. We are lucky to work with a fantastic network of in-house and external promoters who are going to be integral in shaping the new guidelines and resources for other promoters, ultimately resulting in a more supportive and inclusive experience for all in the live music community”.
