By all accounts, this year’s Glastonbury festival went down a muddy storm, and even better, the festival has also been honoured for the way it allowed Deaf and disabled people to access the festival.
BBC News has reported this morning that the festival is the first ever to be awarded ‘gold’ status by the charity Attitude is Everything, who campaign for better access at concerts and music venues.
As the article says:
The event has a bespoke campsite for deaf and disabled festival-goers, uses raised “viewing platforms” for wheelchair users at 11 stages and employs sign language interpreters to allow deaf people to understand lyrics during live acts.
A team of interpreters operate from the festival’s Deaf Zone area – where passers-by can also pop in to learn sign language – and many Deaf people saw a sign language interpreter on stage with Blondie over the weekend (that must have been a career highlight for them!).
Glastonbury’s been working hard on access for Deaf people for the past few years now, and it’s not the only festival that makes a special effort for its Deaf audience. Latitude Festival has also made massive inroads (see this link for more info).
The fact that these festivals are considering a diverse audience is incredibly positive, however, the music industry could do a great deal more for Deaf people, whether they sign or not.
I spent three years working in theatre access, at Soho Theatre in central London and then for the charity STAGETEXT (who are also one of this site’s supporters).
During that time, I saw many theatres (both in London and outside the capital) dedicate valuable resources to organising and funding signed and captioned performances, so that Deaf people could enjoy performances on the same basis as the non-deaf audience.
While at STAGETEXT, I also saw how the charity – along with other organisations – was working to make live talks and events accessible through Speech-to-Text in museums and art galleries.
By comparison, live music promoters and large venues that host big performers – who often make much larger profits – could do so much more for Deaf people.
Some offer special headphones to help Deaf people hear a concert better, but it’s almost unheard of for a major music venue to organise a sign language interpreter or captions so that Deaf people can follow the lyrics to the songs.
As a teenager, I often went to gigs (seeing bands like REM, Radiohead, and Reef) with my hearing friends, but found it almost impossible to work out any of the lyrics (for one thing, I was often too far back to lipread, but the main difference was that the music wasn’t as clear live as it was on CD at home).
Two years ago, I went to see Radiohead in Manchester, and although I enjoyed the music, I left with the sense that I’d missed half of the concert, because I could hardly understand a single lyric (Thom Yorke’s voice sounded nice though).
The problem is sometimes that it’s not clear who should pay for access – is the promoter responsible, or the venue? But when profits are vast, there really should be some agreement when acts are first booked, to do something that gives Deaf and disabled people access.
In a sense, a huge festival like Glastonbury or Latitude is the most effective place to provide access. There’s so many people there that there is bound to be a sizable Deaf audience. There’s a multitude of acts to choose from (so there’s less chance of providing access for an act Deaf people aren’t interested in). One knowledgable person with awareness of what Deaf people need can organise a team of volunteers and provide an amazingly accessible experience concentrated into a short period of time.
The challenge for one-off concerts is quite different. The organisers have to arrange everything themselves, and they might not have the expertise. They might work out how to book an interpreter, but will they be aware that they need to seat Deaf people in the right place to see them, for example?
They also face a marketing challenge. How do they reach Deaf people to tell them that a concert is accessible? Just adding an access section to their website and hoping people find the information is not enough.
During my time working in theatre access, I saw how hard theatres worked to attract a diverse audience (not only Deaf, but also partially sighted and those with other disabilities), using mailing lists, contacting local groups, advertising in specialist magazines and so on.
They also worked massively hard to retain customers – getting feedback and improving the service so that people would come again and again.
What I’d like to see is big venues like the O2 or the MEN arena in Manchester start to regularly offer captioned and/or BSL interpreted access to concerts by major performers, across the year. As Attitude is Everything pointed out in the BBC’s article, venues are missing out on revenue from people who would attend performances – if they were able to.
I’d go along and see an act I wasn’t even familiar with if I knew I could see what the lyrics were and get a sense of what they are trying to say.
Providing great access isn’t easy, but when theatres have done so much to improve the experience for Deaf audiences, it’s clear that music venues should be doing much, much more to try and improve things.
Find out more about Attitude is Everything here: http://www.attitudeiseverything.org.uk/
By Charlie Swinbourne. Charlie is the editor of Limping Chicken, as well as being a journalist (Guardian, BBC Online) and award-winning scriptwriter. His short film The Kiss was shown at Bradford International Film Festival in March, and his comedy Four Deaf Yorkshiremen go to Blackpool can now be seen on the BSL Zone by clicking here.
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Pascale Maroney
June 30, 2014
The Other stage was just the start of it. There were also DeafZone interpreters on stage at the West Holts, John Peel, Outer Gully, Left Field, Astrolabe Theatre and at the Poetry and Words tent. It’s a great start but we still have a long way to go, hoping for bigger and better for DeafZone at Glastonbury Festival of Performing Arts in 2015.
By working together we can achieve a greater music experience, check out the Attitude is Everything campaign #musicwithoutbarriers
Sylvia Webb
June 30, 2014
Is it for ALL of us?
Oh Dear
June 30, 2014
‘The problem is sometimes that it’s not clear who should pay for access – is the promoter responsible, or the venue?’
Neither, the consumers pays…….
Pascale Maroney (DeafZone)
June 30, 2014
In the case of Glastonbury Festival they provide the DeafZone 25 tickets, we then recruit volunteers (18 BSL/English Interpreters & 7 Deaf stewards/BSL tutors) Deaf festival-goers buy their ticket and have the option to apply for a free PA ticket to enable them to further access the festival programme on top of using the DeafZone interpreters. (The festival is in its 44th year & the DeafZone in its current form has only been running since 2009 and it’s thanks to Paddy Ladd for his vision of access & negotiations with the Deaf & Disabled Access officer at the festival that made it happen)
Hartmut
July 1, 2014
The extra costs should be borne by the profits of such venues or by the public in whatever way. We are part of the society. We cannot be regarded (subconsciously) as the pains in the asses of the society, as if we ought to ever exist. We don’t deserve bandaid solutions. The solution ought to be systemic or a requirement, not a matter of Caritas or another form of benevolence.
This MUST be told to the decision makers, endlessly and recklessly. If they want to include us, they MUST pay for it by virtue of having the power to wield financial resources.
sammmymack
June 30, 2014
One problem is that many hearing people do not actually realise that deaf people enjoy music, gigs, concerts and festivals.
Hartmut
July 1, 2014
We in the USA have been through such things in the 80’s and 90’s, after which some reality check has set in among the deaf “enthusiasts” of such events like that in Glastonbury. At first, we were just curious to learn what is it like outside, out there in the hearing world with such a big hoopla, the frenzied excitements we saw in hearing people. We experienced the creativity of sign language interpreters, how they crafted the song texts into signs, how the rhythms in their hand movements attempted to bring forth the music underlying the words. We enjoyed this art and admired the interpreters. So did many hearing sign language students, who admired them much more than the music.
Then came along something better, performed by groups of hard-of-hearing musicians and dancers, themselves native signers, either having deaf parents or growing up with deaf classmates in diverse educational settings, who played music, signed the lyrics artistically, and danced with for eyes appealing choreography, which were much much better than those hearing guitarists and singers, jerking their bodies and hopping across the stage.(just look at them without music, their body movements do not have any intrinsic merits). Swinebourne may be able to give names of such hard-of-hearing music groups in the US. One I can give is “Musign” and its successor “Beethoven’s Nightmare” of the Coreys siblings and Hillerman.
Slowly we realized what music really meant to us. Hard-of-hearing folks could enjoy the music more than us Deafies, but upon closer examination and discussions with them, I must conclude, for them music constituted chiefly in form of rhythm, punctuated by drum beats or bass sounds. Appreciation or at least a sense of melody is not part of their music.
Then I took upon myself to look at the “lyrics”. Some are poetic. But I must judge, many texts are plainly stupid wordsmithing with a lot of repetitions for no reason, except for lack of poetic creativity in order to fill the air with words. A hearing critic, whose name I cannot remember, commented those wordsmithing by saying, “they are just lousy lyrics, saved by music!”. In other words, they are camouflaged by music.
Music has become the overriding principle in the creation of an artistic piece. Poetry is only a second-fiddling piece of the enterprise. The songs can go just fine without words, perhaps even better.
Despite my severe criticism, the organisators must be commented for this effort of trying to include deaf people in the festivals, and to give the British Deafies such learning experiences of what is “out there in the hearing world”. It is time for them to think “inclusion” differently by challenging us to come up with our own products and present them with pride and most importantly to provide funds and platform for our creative creations.
It is about time for the Hearies to learn about us, as we are learning about them.
Hartmut
I am deaf, but not my ears.
Tony Nicholas
July 1, 2014
The responsibility for access to venues and shows lies with the venues and the promoters. That’s how I see it. A case can also be made for the performers to have a say in making their shows accessible.
Xpressive Handz
July 1, 2014
Way to go, Charlie!! Your hard has paid off. You deserve this award! Joyce Edmiston, aka Xpressive Handz
Sylvia Webb
July 2, 2014
You need to include all those with communication needs to make it really deaf and disabled inclusive. I couldn’t go cos it wouldn’t cover my needs.