�ine, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about accessibility and inclusion in the arts. Our focus today is on the practical steps involved in implementing accessibility for arts and culture events. But first of all, could you tell us a little bit about yourself and your work in organising accessible performances at The Grand Opera House? Yes, my name�s �ine Dolan. I�m the Creative Learning Manager here at The Grand Opera House. For those of you who have a visual impairment, I am in my 40s, I�m short in stature, and I have shoulder-length blond hair with a fringe. So my job here at the theatre has a number of responsibilities, and one of those is organising access performances, which includes captioning, signed performances, audio description, touch tours and relaxed performances. Thank you for that introduction. So, you mentioned in our earlier conversations that sometimes you have to start as far as 18 months in advance when it comes to organising accessible performances. Could you tell us a little bit more about why you have to start preparing so far in advance? Well, here at The Grand Opera House we programme our shows for the theatre at least 18 months in advance, one year to 18 months in advance, so part of that process means then that the shows are actually on sale at least a year in advance so it would be important that we have the access performances arranged and agreed at the time that the show goes on sale. This means that anyone who has an access requirement can still book an accessible performance at the same time as people who don�t have access requirements. We also produce two season brochures a year, so we include all our access information and the access performances in the brochure as well, so again, that�s important, to get that booked well in advance. Could you tell us what are some of the biggest challenges that you face in terms of providing accessible performances at The Grand Opera House? One of the biggest challenges we face is getting a recording, an up-to-date recording of the shows. For an access performance to be provided, you must have a recording to allow the service providers to prepare in advance. And we have found that, over the years, it has been really difficult to get our hands on a recent recording of the show. Sometimes production companies will have archived recordings, but those could be a few years old. So, it�s really important that we get the recent one and that has been quite a challenge over the last couple of years. Why would you say that it is so important to have a DVD of a recent performance of the play or the show? Well, here in the theatre the shows come to us maybe for one or two weeks absolute maximum. They are all touring productions, so we don�t produce our own shows. They are produced by external companies, and The Grand Opera House is the only venue in Northern Ireland that they visit, so there isn�t an opportunity for the service providers to go and see the show in another venue. So they need a recording that they can pause, replay, make their notes, as it takes many, many hours of preparation to get ready for an access performance. Yes, you�ve really highlighted for us there the importance, you know, of having access to a recent version of a performance for the access facility provider. And could you, we were also talking in our previous conversation about how while some audience members might not identify themselves to you as someone who needs theatre captioning in order to access a performance, that some audience members may find the captions helpful and that theatre captioning therefore can be beneficial for wider audiences, for audiences in general. Could you tell us a little more about that? Yes, I would agree, I do think that there are audience members who come and see shows who can benefit from the captioning service without actually realising themselves that they can benefit. For example, if you haven�t quite understood what the actor has said, perhaps the dialect that the play is in, or an accent that you are not used to, it can be difficult to understand perhaps what the actor has said, so the captioning screens can clarify that. We also find for example with Shakespeare�s plays, with the language complexities that again it might be quite difficult to fully understand the lines, or what has just been said. Interestingly, I think as well that if English is not your first language, captioning screens can be really beneficial to help you understand what the actors have said. I read on your website that The Grand Opera House has an Access for All scheme and a Disability Advisory Group. These sound like fantastic initiatives. Could you tell us a little more about them? Yes, so the Access for All scheme is open to all of our customers who have any access requirements. We ask that they complete an application for the scheme, and the application form would ask for some detail around what their access requirements are, whether perhaps they are a wheelchair user or they are visually impaired. We ask them whether they require an alternative format brochure and we log all of that information on our box office system, so when they contact us to make a reservation all of that information appears on the screen, and the sales agent can then make appropriate recommendations for that specific customer. The Disability Advisory Group was set up in 2009, and it is a group of people who are representative of a range of disabilities from our customers. They meet three times a year, and they would advise and support us in relation to access matters in the theatre. We have found it a really useful and really helpful resource when we have been trying to develop our access work here. Thanks for telling us about these, and our viewers might want to consider finding out whether their local venues have a disability advisory group, or if they work at a venue they might want to think about setting up a similar group and a similar disability scheme, you know, for their patrons. I was also reading that you have achieved the Arts and Disability Equality Charter, so congratulations on that. Could you give us a brief overview of what that involves in terms of providing accessible performances? Yes, so the Disability Equality Charter really focused on accessibility across the organisation as a whole. Part of that process included people with disabilities coming in to the theatre and assessing our access services or access facilities including the performances and then they fed back to us, and scored us on those services, and that was how we obtained the Charter. I think it�s really important for venues to get feedback from the customers. It was fantastic for us to achieve the Charter mark, it took a lot of work to get that, but I think the important thing to note is that once you become accessible it doesn�t stop there. It is something that you do have to work at all of the time. I think you make a really good point there about it being a continual process and it�s great to hear of your awareness of that here at The Grand Opera House. I also think that again perhaps our viewers might be interested in finding out whether in their region or in their local area there is a similar arts accessibility framework. So thank you very much �ine for a very enlightening conversation about accessibility at the Grand Opera House. Thank you. Delighted.
