What an Event Listing Should Say About Access

An event listing should state the entrance, the seating and the toilet before anyone travels. Those three items decide whether a journey is possible, and a listing that omits them costs the reader a phone call or a wasted trip. Everything else, the programme, the prices, the parking, can follow.

What should an accessible event listing contain?

An accessible listing contains six facts, each attached to a figure or a name. The first is the entrance: which door, on which street, and whether the route from the pavement to that door is step-free. The second is the door itself: its clear opening width in millimetres, and whether it is a manual leaf, a powered leaf or a leaf held open for the duration. The third is the seating: how many wheelchair spaces, where they sit in the room, and whether a companion seat is fixed beside each one. The fourth is the toilet: whether an accessible toilet exists on the same level as the seating, and whether a Changing Places facility is provided. The fifth is the route inside: the lift, the corridor width, the distance from the entrance to the seat in metres. The sixth is the contact: a phone number or an email address that a person answers, not a form.

Approved Document M of the Building Regulations gives the numbers a venue can quote. A wheelchair-accessible toilet needs a minimum 1500 mm by 2200 mm in front of the pan, and a Changing Places facility needs 12 square metres with a 700 mm clearance on both sides of the peninsular WC. A venue that has measured its own building can print those figures. A venue that has not measured them should say so rather than leave the reader guessing.

An events calendar that publishes a season of concerts and exhibitions is a useful model for how much detail a listing can carry without becoming a document. A calendar entry that names the room, the door and the toilet does the work of a phone call. The same principle applies to an arts events calendar wherever it is published: the entry is only as useful as the access facts inside it.

How does a venue describe its entrance in words?

A venue describes its entrance by naming the street, the door and the surface, in that order. The description reads as a set of directions, not as an apology. "The accessible entrance is on Regent Street, 40 metres north of the main doors, through a powered leaf that opens towards the pavement. The route from the kerb is level, with a dropped kerb at the crossing." That sentence gives a reader everything needed to arrive.

The figures come from the same documents. BS 8300-1:2018 sets the clear opening width of a new accessible door at 900 mm, and a level approach with a gradient no steeper than 1 in 60 needs no handrail. A ramp between 1 in 20 and 1 in 12 needs a handrail on both sides and a 1500 mm landing at the top. A single step of 15 mm or less at a threshold is a lip, not a step, and a listing should say which it is.

A venue should also describe the surface. Cobbles, gravel and steep cambers change what a wheelchair user can do, and a listing that mentions them is more useful than one that does not. The highway authority publishes its own figures for kerb heights and crossing points, and a venue can quote the local one.

When should a venue say that its access is limited?

A venue should say that its access is limited as soon as it knows, and in the same place as the event details. A listing that describes a beautiful room and leaves the reader to discover a flight of stairs on arrival has failed, whatever the room looks like. The statement belongs in the listing, not in a separate access page that a reader has to find.

Limited access is a fact, not a disqualification. A venue with a 700 mm door, a stepped entrance or a toilet on another floor can still host an event, and it can still sell tickets. What it cannot do is stay silent. The Equality Act 2010 places a duty on service providers to make reasonable adjustments, and a reasonable adjustment starts with an accurate description of what the building offers.

A venue should name the limitation in the same terms it would use for a feature. "The auditorium is reached by 12 steps; a lift is available from the foyer and holds one wheelchair at a time." "The accessible toilet is on the ground floor, 30 metres from the seating area." "There is no Changing Places facility in the building; the nearest is at the leisure centre, 600 metres away." Each sentence tells the reader what to plan for.

What does a reader do with the listing?

A reader uses the listing to decide whether to travel, and then to plan the journey. The entrance description becomes a route. The seating description becomes a request to the box office. The toilet description becomes a decision about how long to stay. A listing that answers all three removes the phone call that would otherwise be needed, and it removes the risk of arriving at a door that does not open.

A reader who finds the facts missing will ring the venue, and the venue will answer from memory. That answer is often wrong, because the person answering the phone is not the person who measured the door. A listing that carries the figures is more reliable than a conversation, and it reaches every reader at once.

What should a listing leave out?

A listing should leave out the words that carry no information. "Fully accessible" says nothing, because it does not name a door, a width or a toilet. "Wheelchair friendly" says nothing for the same reason. "Please contact us for access information" pushes the work back onto the reader, who may not be able to make the call.

A listing should also leave out the assumption that access is a single category. A reader may use a wheelchair, a walking frame, a guide dog or a hearing loop, and each of those needs a different fact. A listing that names the hearing loop, the induction loop coverage and the assistance dog policy is more useful than one that names none of them.

The test is simple. If a reader can arrive at the correct door, find the correct seat and use the correct toilet without asking a question, the listing has done its job. If any of those three requires a phone call, the listing is incomplete, and the journey is at risk.