Article by Luke Bodin, BA Events

If you’re like me, you will want everyone that arrives at your event to feel welcome and be able to engage. This is key to ensuring the consultation you do is as inclusive as possible.

However, 19% of working adults are disabled – so having a plan to make your events accessible is key to good consultation.

As the owner of an event agency, we have worked with our clients to ensure their online, digital and hybrid events are accessible for many years. The pandemic has for some disabled people provided an opportunity for them to engage more in events as there are less barriers to accessing online engagement. As we move to a hybrid event model this provides an opportunity for professionals running consultations to get the best of both worlds.

Here are five simple tips which can be implemented to your events to ensure they are accessible.

1. Asking your attendees what they require

As part of the sign-up process for events it’s good practise to ask attendees, “what can we do to make the event accessible and comfortable for you?”. The responses you can get are often small adjustments that can be made at no cost or information you can send to attendees in certain formats ahead of time.

2. Speaker guidance

We suggest as part of your speaker briefing you put some accessibility pointers for your speakers to consider. This can include ensuring the way they design their PowerPoint is visible (large fonts, black text and no text over images), ensuring speakers do not talk quickly and for online events ensuring the speaker is facing the camera for lip readers.

3. Aids such as interpreters and captions

If you require a British sign language interpreter or captioner you can make these services available to people joining your event in-person or online. There are even software’s available to enable the captions to be accessed with different background/text colours, fonts and sizes.

And a small tip – remember that interpreters work in pairs and swap every 15-20 minutes, so make sure you factor that into your event plan.

4. Venue sourcing

If you’re doing your event in person, we suggest as part of your venue checklist you consider the following. The transport links and walking routes to the venue, if there is a changing places toilet and if the venue allow assistance dogs. There are many other things to consider, but these are a few things people often overlook.

5. Building your online event platform

Then finally, your online event platform. Whether you’re building your own platform or using an off the shelf event platform, please consider the following. Setting up alternative text for images, ensuring the platform can be used on screen readers and screen magnifiers and finally making sure the platform is responsive on different devices.

There are a range of tips here to make your event more accessible that we have learned through doing our events. But if you need help and guidance there are many fantastic accessibility consultants that will be able to answer your questions and work with you to ensure your consultation event is as accessible as possible.

Sources: Big Hack

 

About the Author

Luke is the Director of BA Events, an event agency that partnership with clients to deliver virtual, live and hybrid events, bringing people and ideas together. He works predominately in the transport and construction sector, working with organisations such as Transport Focus, West Midlands Trains and Buckingham Group.

Outside of events Luke has studied business at Aston Universities Business School where he took part in their business growth programme.