Hopefully by now, most of you would have heard of ‘Ability Fest’, an accessible music festival held by the Dylan Alcott Foundation in Melbourne every year since 2018. The festival promotes access and inclusion for people with disability, as well as being a fundraiser for the Dylan Alcott Foundation. This year the festival raised $587,000 to support young Australians with disability achieve their dreams (and for the first time was also held in Brisbane!). We have attended Ability Fest before as ticket-holders, and Molly even volunteered in the first year, but this year JAM had a stall at Ability Fest for the first time!
It was so amazing seeing people with disability discover JAM for the first time (always a favourite part of ours about in person events!), and realise there are accessible clothing options that consider their dressing needs. We met lots of customers who had already heard of JAM which was also very cool. Aside from the fact it was a great experience for JAM, as Occupational Therapists and people that are passionate about accessibility, it was amazing to see what the festival had implemented to include people with disability.
Our favourite feature from past festival years and this year is always the sign language interpreters. Each stage has an interpreter that stands next to the artist performing and interprets what they are singing/playing for those in the crowd that communicate through sign. This may sound like a simple addition, but sign language interpreters are rarely used in live music performances and they are so fun to watch. The interpreters are always so full of energy and get right into the music! Some less-fun but just as important accessibility features we picked up on were the accessible portaloo toilets, the flat flooring that allowed for easy use of mobility aids and the quiet sensory zones. Another really cool feature we saw for the first time was the use of vibrating vests. There was a silent disco as part of the festival, and for those that are deaf or hard of hearing, they were able to wear these vests that vibrate to the beat of the music, allowing those wearing them to ‘feel’ the music even if they are unable to hear it. There are so many different ways to include the diverse disability community within a music festival, with a lot of people assuming accessibility features are only for those with physical disability or wheelchair users, this was such a great example of thinking more broadly about who would be attending the event and how they can engage with the music.
Seeing all of the accessibility features was really great (especially as an OT), but what had the biggest impact on us was seeing so many people with (visible) disability having fun and being included. You don’t realise until you go to an event like Ability Fest, but seeing people with disability at things like music festivals is just not common. Due to the many different types of barriers, people with disability are excluded from the vast majority of public events. We met so many people from the disability community that were there with their friends, siblings or support workers just enjoying themselves by doing something most festival goers would take for granted. Whilst there is always room for improvement with disability accessibility (even from experts in the space) and we hope more and more people from the community are able to attend Ability Fest in the future, we hope that other music festivals (and other public events) can learn from Ability Fest that it isn’t necessarily difficult to include people with disability, and that this will become the minimum standards for organisers going forward.
