Richard Turner: Latitude is so much more than music

Posted on July 29, 2015 by



The last music festival I went to was Glastonbury in 1997. I went camping with a group of friends and despite being covered in mud and not being able to have a shower all weekend, we had a fantastic time.

I was a lot younger then with a lot less responsibility and a bit more stupid! I’ll never forget my excitement at watching Radiohead and The Prodigy playing live to thousands of people and having a really great time.

But after I lost my hearing a few years ago, I couldn’t see any point in going to a festival anymore. I thought that if I can’t hear the music, it would never be the same again. I still had the memories of the bands and songs I loved in my head though even if I couldn’t hear them anymore.

RT latitudeSince I had my cochlear implant operation a year ago, I was wondering what it would be like to go to a festival and hear live music again. A friend of mine, Carole, then told me about Latitude Festival in Suffolk, which was held every July. She also told me that she would be involved in working with the BSL access at the event.

The festival was made accessible for deaf and disabled people by the organisers, Festival Republic. Also a charity called ‘Attitude Is Everything’ were involved in making the festival accessible and inclusive.

As well as access rate tickets, there was an accessible camping area and volunteers there to support disabled people when needed, providing information and recharging points for mobile phones, cochlear implant batteries and wheelchairs. There were also accessible viewing platforms provided for disabled people and their PAs/carers to watch the performances.

So, I decided to go there with my wife Joanna. It had been a long time since either of us had camped and we didn’t know what to expect. But we were well looked after right from the minute we arrived, with an accessible check-in area and disabled parking close to the camping area. Two friendly volunteers even carried our stuff for us and put our tents up!

Latitude Festival is set in the stunning Suffolk countryside with a beautiful lake, acres of wild woods and open fields with sheep painted bright pink especially for the festival! It is a much smaller festival than Glastonbury and it had a very creative, colourful vibe to it, with lots of different stages, bars and tents spread around the whole site, which took on a magical appearance at night.

There was also a huge diversity of music, literature and performance art on offer. It had a really wacky, unpredictable feel to it. We often stumbled upon some really random, crazy stuff going on in the woods or by the lake. I loved it!RT latitude bbc

Some of the musical performances and comedy acts were interpreted into BSL. I saw a BSL interpreted performance of a live band playing on my first night, which was good, although I think it would have been better if the interpreter had been allowed on the main stage instead of on the viewing platform in the middle of the field. I also wish that there had been more BSL interpreted performances as they seemed to be quite limited.

I enjoyed listening to the writer Hanif Kureishi reading out one of his entertaining short stories in the Literature tent, followed by a Q&A session with the audience there about creative writing. I have always enjoyed his novels and films ‘The Buddha of Suburbia’ and ‘My Beautiful Launderette’. The tent was packed with people but I was really disappointed to discover that the hearing loop there was not working so I had to rely on my cochlear implant. I managed to catch the gist of what he was saying but had to ask my wife to fill in the gaps.

It was also a shame that there was no speech-to-text reporting or captioning provided at Latitude at all for deaf and hard of hearing people. I think a talk like this and some of the live comedy shows would have been much more accessible with speech-to-text reporting, so I hope STAGETEXT will consider providing this access next year.

I was really looking forward to seeing The Charlatans, one of my all-time favourite Manchester bands. Well they definitely didn’t disappoint! I watched them from the viewing platform in the BBC Radio 6 music tent and they were fantastic. They played all their old songs and sounded just like I remembered them from twenty years ago!

It was great to be amongst lots of disabled people in wheelchairs or mobility scooters all letting their hair down and enjoying themselves with their families, friends and PAs on the viewing platform.

My other musical highlight was watching The Vaccines play live on the Saturday night. This is a fairly new band I’d never heard before but they were fantastic! The atmosphere was electric in the music tent with the lead singer throwing himself frenetically around the stage and into the audience at one point. I could feel the energy and intensity of the band’s performance, as well as sense the vibrations of the drums and guitars from the viewing platform.

One of the best things about the weekend for me was meeting lots of disabled people there, who were just enjoying themselves without having to worry about barriers to access or discriminatory attitudes from some other people. I met a great bunch of people and hope to keep in contact with some of them.

I was so glad I decided to go to another festival again after all these years. Latitude was brilliant! I don’t think I would have gone without the great access and support provided there though. The diversity and inclusion was great. I’m already looking forward to going back next year and will hopefully bring some more deaf friends with me too!

By Richard Turner

Richard blogs at his own blog, Good Vibrations and works for Action on Hearing Loss

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