The Cheltenham Jazz Festival stepped up its commitment to making accessibility improvements during this year’s event.
BBC Online reported that the festival adopted the use of a sign to make people aware that not all disabilities are easily visible. Organisers also installed viewing platforms for wheelchair users.
The BBC reported that the new disability sign featured a person in a wheelchair, alongside the figures of a man and woman standing with wheelchair signs superimposed on their heads to suggest hidden disabilities.
It read: “Some disabilities are visible, some are not. Take care of each other.”
The design was the work of student Sam Vestey, who studies at National Star – a specialist college near Cheltenham for people with physical disabilities, brain injury and associated learning difficulties.
Sam worked with a student at St John’s School and College in Brighton to create the design because he thought the wheelchair icon used on blue badges and disabled bays was now outdated.
He told the BBC: “I wanted to change the perception of disability and highlight the fact you can be disabled without being in a wheelchair.
“People may not look disabled on the outside but may have hidden disabilities.”
Roz Blakeway, who uses a wheel chair, told the BBC she had enjoyed pop singer Mika’s set from one of the new viewing platforms.
She said: “We had the best view of the whole venue, we could hear really well, we could see everything – you just didn’t feel like you are in the way of everybody.”
As well as adjustments for the audience, the festival has worked to improve accessibility in its backstage and front-of-house areas so that performers and crew with disabilities are not excluded either.
Andrew Lansley, innovation manager at Cheltenham Festivals, said organisers tried to make the event more accessible to people with additional needs.
He said: “What we have been doing is listening to the community and we are working with people to try and improve accessibility to venues.
“We are trying to democratise culture – I think it takes all kinds of people to make music, to make jazz, to make all the wonderful things we enjoy as a society.”
