THE UK Festival Awards is throwing its support behind the Attitude Is Everything (AiE) campaign, which aims to improve deaf and disabled people’s access to live music events.

For the first time, Festival Awards has included disabled access as part of the judging criteria used to ascertain this year’s winners.

In addition, Festival Republic’s Managing Director Melvin Benn has provided a £1,000 bursary for Access and Disability Equality Training to the winner of the Best Grassroots Festival award at the UK Festival Awards. This will provide the opportunity for smaller or younger festivals to address the requirements of Deaf and disabled festival-goers, performers and staff.

Benn said: “At Festival Republic events we want everyone to be able to participate, feel safe, and be part of the crowd and we work closely with Attitude Is Everything to achieve this. I am very pleased to be funding the first Access training bursary to the future winners of the Grassroots Festival Award so they will be able to benefit from this invaluable support.”

James Drury, Managing Director of UK Festival Awards said: “Grassroots festivals are real labours of love created on very tight budgets, so the chance to get vital advice and training from the experts at Attitude is Everything, thanks to the generosity of Festival Republic, will be really valuable for the winner of our Grassroots Festival Award.

“Access for Deaf and disabled people is an important criterion that our judges look out for when visiting festivals. I feel proud that Attitude is Everything chose our Awards to distribute this bursary.”

Suzanne Bull, Chief Executive Officer, Attitude is Everything said: “The fact that the UK Festival Awards has included Access as a criteria this year is a major breakthrough in making sure that the music industry continues to meet the requirements of their Deaf and disabled customers, as well as raising the general public’s awareness of the issues that Deaf and disabled people face at music festivals across the UK.

“I’m delighted that, thanks to the foresight and the generosity of Melvin Benn at Festival Republic, we are able to offer one of our training bursaries to a new, small festival. It means that this festival with have the opportunity to sign to our Charter of Best Practice and have all the support it needs to improve Deaf and disabled people’s access to its festival.”

Continuing a successful summer for AiE, a partnership project with the London Borough of Tower Hamlets, every festival that takes place on Victoria Park now has to adhere to Attitude is Everything’s Charter of Best Practice as an “Event Standard”. The Local Authority 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.

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.

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.