Lisa and Simon, thank you so much for joining us today to talk about accessibility and inclusion at arts and culture events. But first, could you tell us a little bit about yourselves? Hi, my name is Lisa. For those who are visually impaired, I am nearly fifty, I have light brown hair and I wear glasses. We�re here in The Den in The MAC which is on the sixth floor to talk about accessibility at The MAC. Hello, my name is Simon Magill. I�m Creative Director at The MAC Belfast. For those of you who may be slightly visually impaired, I�m about five foot ten and I have messy hair with a big nose. Thank you for those introductions. So our focus today is on implementing access facilities at arts events, but from our conversation the other day Lisa I learnt, really, that accessibility and inclusion at The MAC is much more fundamental than that as inclusion is actually integral to the concept and design of The MAC and has been since its inception. Could you tell me a little bit about that? Well, accessibility has always been on the agenda for The MAC from pretty much its inception, how the building was designed, and simple things like for access into the building via two doorways, a lower desk at the box office, and we carry that through everything that we do as part of our strategic objectives to create a warm and accessible building for everybody that comes into The MAC. So we have taken it from literally from the front door right through to the back of the house. Yes, it�s really evident to me how access is integral to The MAC and everything that you do here. Could you tell us a little about training, your staff training at The MAC? I�m asking this because one of the things I hear over and over again from patrons is how important it is to them, you know, how they are treated by staff when they come into a venue, and how staff inform them about accessible events in venues. Could you tell us a little bit about your accessibility training for staff in The MAC? Ok. It starts actually from induction, from the very first time they come in. Obviously we talk about the vision for The MAC, about breaking down barriers, giving the gift of theatre and visual arts to all parts of the community, to every type of person that comes in. So from day one, the members of staff they understand that warm and welcoming is really the ethos of what we�re trying to do, and being warm and welcoming includes everybody that comes in. It doesn�t matter what age they are, what kind of background they have or whether they are visually impaired, whether it is a child with autism or a mother with a baby in her pram. So that�s the very first step. After that then we have ongoing refresher training in autism awareness, disability awareness, practical skills in how to engage with customers that might have some difficulties working their way round the venue. Even their t-shirts say �Talk to me�. They encourage customers to engage with the staff as well. So it�s pervasive in everything that we do, from the first moment of employment to delivering on the customer care, which is ultimately what it is about, about being warm and friendly to everyone that comes into The MAC. Yes, it�s evident that you have a really holistic approach to training, you know, where everyone is involved in being warm and welcoming to your patrons coming in through the door. Also, I�m aware that you have training for your staff on your relaxed performances, and also that you hold relaxed performances here at The MAC. Our students will have had the opportunity to view your video on relaxed performances at The MAC and on your MACTile tours. Simon, could you tell us a little bit more about those? Sure. They evolved over the years. I�m pretty certain we were the first venue in the north of Ireland to introduce relaxed performances, and our approach now not only is about, initially it was how we adapted a show that existed to be able to be performed in a relaxed environment. But now that we are producing our own Christmas show, for example, we take any element of a relaxed performance into consideration from the get-go. So in other words, the story, costuming, characterisation, music, all those things are brought into our creative process and into our thought process. And we are conscious that we have deadlines within our production schedule for our MACTile tour box, you know that as the costumes, lighting, set and all that as well, so it�s not something that we add as an afterthought now, it�s there right from the beginning. Yes, it�s evident from your video that a lot of care and research and innovation has gone into your relaxed performances and your MACTile tours. Another issue that has arisen in the course of creating this unit has been that production companies are often unwilling to contribute to the costs of access facilities for performances because they don�t see the value in doing so. Lisa, what would you say to production companies and funders, you know, why should they care about accessibility at arts venues? I think it�s directly linked in to the sustainability of any organisation in the arts because what you have is the added value of staff engagement, wellbeing, the impact of wellbeing. Training empowers staff to be aware of the different people coming into The MAC and giving them confidence to deal with different situations. An example would be we do staff training about autism. There�s learnings there that you could apply in your everyday life even, and I just think that it enhances the staff�s understanding of how they can impact on the success of any organisation. Staff engagement is a key point when it comes to financial success, and if you have a very engaged workforce who absolutely understand what your mission is and are able to deliver it at a high standard, it�s going to impact across the board, on the financial bottom line. Now I�m not saying that anybody�s going to get rich on being accessible to everybody, but it�s an important part of The MAC culture and we�ve seen the benefits throughout the different departments, the different parts of the organisation, and especially for the funders if they�re trying to reach hard-to-reach communities, hard-to-reach schools that would maybe never think of going to the theatre because it�s too difficult with the kids or the theatre itself isn�t capable of dealing with any problems that may arise. So what you have is repeat business from schools, the schools they come back to us every single year and they spend more, we have more people coming, so you know, it�s a no-brainer for us from a financial point of view as well as all the other enhancements around it. Yes, production companies and funders should take note, and thank you very much Simon and Lisa, thank you. Thank you.
