Accessibility at Events: A Practical Checklist

Accessibility at events is rarely about one expensive adjustment. It is about thirty small decisions, most of which are free if made early and expensive if made late.

Ask properly, once

On the registration form, a single question with a free-text box: "Is there anything we can do to make this event work better for you?" Not a list of checkboxes — people's needs do not fit your list, and a list invites them to self-select out. Then act on the answers and reply to each one. The most common complaint is not that provision was missing; it is that someone asked and never heard back.

Venue

• Step-free route from the street to the room and to the stage. Speakers use wheelchairs too.
• Accessible toilets on the same floor as the sessions, not one floor down.
• Lift capacity and location. A single small lift for 400 people is a bottleneck and an access issue.
• Reserved seating at the front for lip-reading and at the ends of rows for mobility.
• A quiet room, signposted, with the lights turned down and no scheduled activity in it.

Ask these on the site visit — they are in our fifteen venue questions.

Programme and stage

• Live captions for the main room. Increasingly expected, and useful to far more people than those who need them.
• A microphone that is actually used. "Can everyone hear me without this?" — the answer is no.
• Roving microphones for audience questions, or a moderator who repeats every question.
• Slide contrast and minimum 24pt type. Brief this to speakers; it is in our speaker briefing guide.
• Breaks long enough to cross the venue at walking pace, not at a rush.

Materials and digital

• Agenda available as text on the web, not only as a PDF or an image.
• Slides shared afterwards, in a format a screen reader can read.
• Alt text on images in your emails and event site.
• Badges with large, high-contrast names — see badge design.

Food and breaks

Dietary requirements are an accessibility issue, not a preference: allergies, religious requirements and medical diets. Label everything at the buffet, keep allergens separate, and make sure the person who needs the alternative does not have to ask three staff to find it.

Tell people what you have done

An accessibility section on the event page — step-free access, captions, quiet room, how to ask for something else. People decide whether to attend based on what they can find out in advance, and silence reads as "not provided".

Gathervo's registration forms take free-text accessibility questions per ticket type and keep the answers with the attendee record, so the person on the door sees them. Try it free.