This one-hour online session invites AOM community members to share and be inspired by strategies for expanding accessibility.
WolfBrown is dedicating the second phase of the Audience Outlook Monitor IDEA Study to the exploration of shifting audience perspectives towards disability and accessibility resources. This comes at a moment when, increasingly, arts organizations have realized that audiences (regardless of ability or disability) have a wide range of preferences in terms of the environments in which they experience the arts, formats, amount of contextual information that is provided, and use of technologies in communicating the work. Moreover, new technologies, services, and practices that were initially introduced as accommodations for audiences with disabilities have turned out to enrich the experiences of many audience members, regardless of disability.
We’re currently in the early stages of planning this special topic survey and invite you to participate in this one-hour virtual Town Hall where you can voice your questions and share challenges you’ve faced in expanding accessibility in your organization. Our hope is that this session will both facilitate information sharing among the participants and highlight what we as a field need to learn about our audiences’ accessibility needs and preferences.
Would you find captions, visual descriptions, or other accommodations helpful during the session? If so, please write to Annick Odom at annick@wolfbrown.com, so we can do our best to make necessary arrangements to ensure your full participation. If you need transcripts or closed captioning after the recording is publishes in the archive section of our Audience Outlook Monitor website, you can find options on the Vimeo recordings that we post.
Session Outline:
– An outline of the second phase of the IDEA Study by Alan Brown, John Carnwath, and Erin Gold from WolfBrown
– Introductory remarks from the Office of Accessibility at the National Endowment for the Arts
– All participants will be invited to contribute their ideas during the second half of the session in topic-specific breakout rooms.
To ensure that you get the most out of this portion of the Town Hall, we ask that you fill out this short questionnaire, indicating the topics you’re most interested in discussing.
Breakout Room Topics:
– Increasing Access through New Formats
– Emerging Technologies that Increase Accessibility
– Communications & Ticketing
– Patron Services & Venue Accessibility (including wayfinding, mobility, safety)
– Programming for People Who Can’t Attend in Person