STAR, AiE partner on accessible ticketing guide

The Society of Ticket Agents and Retailers (STAR) in the UK has published an industry-first guide to accessible ticketing, advising on best practice for selling tickets to disabled and deaf customers.

The guide, Making ticket sales accessible for disabled customers, was commissioned by STAR and written by disability consultancy Nimbus, with input from Attitude is everything. It highlights ways in which ticket agencies can better serve disabled customers, and also addresses the legal and operational considerations around accessible ticketing.

STAR chief executive Jonathan Brown comments: “This guide’s purpose is simple: There needs to be better equal access to online ticketing and organisations need to be considering how they do it, not whether they do it.

“There needs to be better equal access to online ticketing and organisations need to be considering how they do it – not whether they do it”

“STAR has recently run a number of workshops to help increase awareness of this issue. We know that improvements are being made, and there are certainly ticket agents and venues that are currently working towards implementing online booking facilities for disabled people. We look forward to hearing more on these developments later in the year, but there is still much work to be done.”

Penny Mordaunt MP, the UK’s minister of state for disabled people, health and work, adds: “We must do all that we can to offer disabled people a real choice in how and where they spend their time and money. I wholeheartedly welcome the publication of this guide to support ticketing retailers in becoming as accessible as possible, and hope that the whole industry will take the guidance on board.”

The number of deaf and disabled concertgoers rose 26% in 2015. Attitude is Everything CEO Suzanne Bull told IQ earlier this year that there is a growing “international movement towards accessibility”, wherein live music stakeholders are increasingly “expecting disabled people to be in the audience” and making sure their needs are met.

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