Everyone's Invited

WITH LAURA GRUNFELD

MAKING YOUR VIRTUAL EVENTS ACCESSIBLE TO ALL

Hello Friends. I bet you are excited! Events are starting back up again. I know you are busy so in this issue I have just a short tidbit of advice that you may find helpful.

Virtual events are not going away. You may be live and in-person again, but many events are also live streaming or recording for later broadcast. Or maybe your event is totally online. No matter how you do it, if you are reaching out to an online audience with some of your stellar content, you will want to think about how you can make your service accessible to everyone. Here are some of the key accessibility features you could add to help you stay in compliance, build your audience, and be totally cool and inclusive:

For Deaf or Hard-of-Hearing Patrons:

• American Sign Language (ASL) interpreters: Select interpreters who are experienced and skilled in interpreting music.

• Captioning: Not all deaf or hard-of-hearing patrons use ASL. Automatically generated captions are pretty inaccurate. Live captioning is better.

For People Who are Blind or Have Low Vision:

• Audio description of the event provides commentary describing what is happening visually.

• Offer to email the program schedule or to mail a Large Print or braille copy of programming information in advance.

For all People with Disabilities:

• Make sure your website is fully accessible.

• On your website, include a page with information about your Access Program for patrons with disabilities.

• Post contact information for people who have questions about accessibility.

• Make sure your ticket sales platform is accessible.

• Make sure the publicity for your event is also accessible.

• Provide two video feeds, one standard feed and another with the interpreter, captioning, and with the option of turning on audio description.

• Include accessibility in your budget, it is simply part of the cost of producing a virtual event.

On July 26th we marked 31 years of the existence of the Americans with Disabilities Act. Because of this law, there is a much higher level of awareness on the part of producers and expectations on the part of attendees. Including people with disabilities in whatever is happening is simply the way it should be done. As makers of joyful gatherings, whether people stand shoulder to shoulder or screen to screen, there is absolutely no reason to leave anyone out of that celebration. We can no longer claim ignorance or say that we just forgot. It’s time we stepped it up for every aspect of our entertainment offerings. We are creating amazing events so we must make sure everyone can enjoy them!

HERE’S A TERRIFIC RESOURCE: www.arts.gov/impact/accessibility/resources-to-help-ensure-accessibility-of-your-virtual-events

FUN AND HELPFUL VIDEO ABOUT THE ART OF CAPTIONING: www.youtube.com/watch?v=tfe479qL8hg

Everyone’s Invited, LLC, founded by Laura Grunfeld, is winner of the gold level “Best Accessibility Program,” for the 2018 and 2019 IFEA/Haas & Wilkerson Pinnacle Awards. Laura writes a regular column helping producers make their events accessible to people with disabilities. She has worked many festivals across the nation and readers can learn more about her event accessibility consulting, training, and production company at www.EveryonesInvited.com and www.linkedin. com/in/lauragrunfeld. Suggest topics or ask questions by writing to Laura@EveryonesInvited.com. © Laura Grunfeld, Everyone’s Invited, LLC, July 2021.

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