UK Festival Awards puts more focus on festival accessibility

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Tuesday, 26 July 2011 10:24am

The UK Festival Awards is the annual awards for the contemporary music festival industry and the benchmark by which festival goers rate their experiences. Considered a coveted prize for organisers, this year’s awards will include disabled access in the criteria.

Generated by the Attitude is Everything campaign which aims to improve deaf and disabled people’s access to live music events, the judging criteria will be across all categories, but the winner of the Best Grassroots Festival will receive a  £1,000 bursary to go towards access and disability equality training.

“Grassroots festivals are real labours of love created on very tight budgets, so the chance to get vital advice and training from the experts at Attitude is Everything…will be really valuable for the winner of our Grassroots Festival Award,” said UK Festival Awards chief James Drury.

“Access for deaf and disabled people is an important criterion that our judges look out for when visiting festivals. I feel proud that Attitude is Everything chose our Awards to distribute this bursary.”

The bursary is offered by Festival Republic, whose CEO Melvin Benn said, “We want everyone to be able to participate, feel safe, and be part of the crowd and we work closely with Attitude is Everything to achieve this. I am very pleased to be funding the first access training bursary to the future winners of the Grassroots Festival Award so they will be able to benefit from this invaluable support.”

The UK Festival Award categories include best major, medium and small festival, best family festival, best overseas festival, best headline performance and, of course, best toilets.

To read more about the awards and the bursary visit the UK Festival Awards website.


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