I am fortunate to have worked in an organisation (Riverside Theatres, Parramatta) that, over an 18-month period, experienced a major attitudinal change to accessibility. In that time, improving accessibility became part of every staff member’s job without a single position description being rewritten. Though it’s far from perfect and with some areas of accessibility just unable to fixed, it was exciting and refreshing to witness various improvements, but it highlighted the many challenges arts venues have in being accessible. Really accessible.
Skip forward seven years, and I’ve since worked at two regional venues with all sorts of access challenges starting with correct use of language: “No, the toilet is not disabled, it is accessible. Please change your language.” At Cowra Civic Centre I was welcomed by a previous accessibility upgrade disaster with the installation of so many ramps in the main auditorium that capacity was greatly reduced, sight line issues had been created by railings, and the corner of the stage had been cut off to install a lift for access to the stage from the auditorium floor.
Potential users of the lift refused to use it as they “could think of nothing more humiliating than being stuck in that thing for 45 seconds while the whole audience watch me rise to the stage”. All this work, but wheelchair users couldn’t even get in the front door as there were no automatic doors. The Braille sign directing people to the accessible bathroom was located above the doorway!
Arriving at Bathurst Memorial Entertainment Centre, a domestic lift had been installed to get audiences requiring level access from floor to floor, but for anyone in a wheelchair there was no room in the lift for a support person if required. Did it break down with patrons inside? You bet! Not to mention the access point for backstage to the main theatre that opens to a full flight of ascending stairs. Pass me the risk assessment form please.
These sorts of issues can be ‘forgiven’ in many of the older buildings that don’t have the funding to make improvements. Workarounds, something we are incredibly good at in the arts, occur all the time and we make things work with all sorts of compromises by artists and audiences, but the fundamental problems remain unaddressed. However, it’s not just the older venues, the issues still exist in more contemporary builds.
I went to the opening event of the Goulburn Performing Arts Centre in March 2022 – lots of beautiful things about the redevelopment of the historic town hall façade and plenty of opportunities to get access right. However, the stage door at street level then requires performers to walk down a flight of stairs to be able to access anything else in the building, including the backstage lift that does provide good access to each floor.
Read: Improved accessibility at Bakehouse Studios due to recent redevelopment
Performers or crew who have level access needs have to enter through front of house, which, depending on the time of day, could require additional phone calls etc to just get in. Others don’t have to do it, but if you could just allow an extra 15 minutes at the start and the end of the day to get you into the building to do your job, that would be great, please. Level access for patrons is fine, except if you are a wheelchair user or not particularly strong – if not chocked open, the large glass doors from the corridor into the bar area require someone else to assist. I get why decisions were made; I just believe other solutions should have been found.
Within a couple of years of opening in 2011, rumour has it that The Concourse Chatswood in Sydney’s North Shore ran a fire drill with a diverse sample of audience members. Again, a wheelchair user got stuck between doors on their ‘escape from the fire’ only to find they didn’t have the required access card to swipe and get the doors to open during an emergency. Fixable, but shouldn’t this have been identified in the planning?
And, of course, budget makes all the difference. Too frequently accessibility is impacted when budgets aren’t enough or cut. In the building of the almost 10-year-old Blue Mountains Theatre and Community Hub, the budget was cut and so, among other things, the accessible bathroom for backstage is now in the wings, reducing functionality of the wings space and privacy for any bathroom user.
I’m not throwing these venues under the bus here. Far from it, I think they provide some good examples of when accessibility hasn’t been considered properly. I mostly focus on physical access, but accessibility is so much more than this. Where is the quiet space? How are walking frames stored or allowed into the theatre? Is there a hearing loop? Have you done a social story for this event? Do staff know how to communicate respectfully with people with an intellectual disability? Does your signage only use words or pictograms? Are bathrooms gendered? The lighting is so pretty, but can people see? Are the toilet seats contrasting in colour to the floor, so people don’t fall when sitting down? If it rains, how does this impact accessibility?
Potential users of the lift refused to use it as they “could think of nothing more humiliating than being stuck in that thing for 45 seconds while the whole audience watch me rise to the stage”.
It’s complicated and I completely empathise with administrators who have limited budgets to fix things, but it is important to ask all of the questions and recognise the shortcomings.
On ABC iView you can watch Headliners, a documentary led by musician and campaigner for inclusion, access and equality, Elly-May Barnes, which highlights the fact that so many music venues across Australia simply aren’t accessible, especially for artists. The documentary reveals musicians with disability who have been frequently denied gigs because they are too much of a risk to have on stage, and artists who have had to get help from other band members to drag their body up stairs just to get on the stage. The pay-off when the two bands made up entirely of musicians with disability get to play at the Mundi Mundi Bash is well worth the watch and quite moving.
However, there are things that lots of arts organisations and venues across the country are guilty of leaving unaddressed for too long: not having a WCAG2.0 AA accessibility compliant website, not being upfront about their shortfalls when it comes to access, so visitors, including patrons and artists, can make a decision beforehand as to whether they will visit or not, printed materials using fonts that are difficult to read, too small, and using language that is often elite or difficult to understand. If you need to make your flyer four pages to make it accessible, then do it! Stop dropping font sizes to minuscule to save a buck! You’ve just lost a lot more because patrons can’t read your flyer. Do you really need all of those logos on that flyer instead of a proper sized font? Can they be credited in a more meaningful way? I’ve never heard a patron say they bought a ticket because of a logo!
I should mention that I’m also on the Board of a regional arts development organisation (RADO) in the Central West of NSW. In doing my Board member duties recently, I assisted in the creation of various plans in preparation for another government funding round, including the Accessibility Plan. Expectations from funding bodies, all well intended, simply don’t meet the realities of the many and varied venues used across the country for arts events, especially in regional Australia.
It is one thing for governments that are based in cities to make broad plans to improve access, but it is quite another when there is no plan or funding made available to address the infrastructural challenges that exist in regional communities. The last round of Create Infrastructure NSW funding that could address this was in 2021/2022 and the first time in about 15 years. It’s the usual thing of more applications for funding than money in the pot. In fact, only 46% (or 165) of 362 applications were successful and no sign of another round for the foreseeable future.
About 90% of performing arts centres are local government assets, but these authorities are already under extraordinary pressures to deliver more and more for their communities. This is especially true when state governments keep offloading responsibilities onto councils, but without the funding to do so or the expectation that they then must apply for the funding to do the work for the state, just so the state member can stand there taking credit with their big cheque and a cheesy grin to take a photo for their social media channels – don’t get me started!
During the creation of the Accessibility Plan, it became apparent that the various buildings and venues that are used for arts events across the region simply don’t meet basic access requirements, but it also became very clear that there were no other options for spaces to use. Many buildings are old with heritage limitations on them etc. Adding in a lift or ramps or an accessible bathroom or hearing loop or changing the acoustics to suit are far from easy to do and far from cheap or quick to achieve. Serious investment in infrastructure from state and federal governments in the regions is well overdue and needs to be ongoing. If you want to improve arts access, including for artists and audiences with disabilities, then get out your cheque book and start writing. And add another zero to the end.
International Day of People with Disability occurs 3 December each year, but every day should highlight the fact that the world we have created is falling very short of being accessible and inclusive, and that we need to do better, think differently and place access at the centre of design for everything we do in life. And that funding is required.
