Contents
– Overview
– Events: Organisers
– Event: Attendees
– Content (digital)
– Reflections and next steps
Overview
Accessibility, diversity and inclusion are core values of the Festival at all levels of our organisation, and we are committed to delivering a programme that is representative of the whole city and can be enjoyed by everyone. At the same time, we recognise that there are still significant barriers for groups in our society to be able to enjoy and participate in festival activity.
Each year we work with to break down institutional barriers and welcome everyone into the conversation around our city, expanding the concept of ‘architecture’ through discovery, debate, learning and activism. Every year, we work to bring new voices into conversations around architecture, who may not have had the opportunity or confidence to do before, platform emerging artists and designers and create a programme that spans across both the physical and the digital, ensuring there is something for everyone.
We aim to practically reduce barriers to participation in the festival also, where possible, whether that be organising or attending events.
Events: Organisers
If you’re running an event as part of LFA2024, it’s worth thinking about what factors might restrict someone’s ability to participate. It’s important to explore questions around access at the outset, when you first start to devise a project, rather than being left as a last minute add it. You can find our guide on how to make your event more inclusive in the LFA Account Section.
Events: Attendees
If you’re attending an event, you can find general site and event access information on every event listing, such as accessible toilets, BSL interpreted events etc. You can also search the programme using this information. If you need additional assistance for an event, you can find the specific contact for each event on the event listing itself. You can also find this information in our printed guide and alternative versions of the guide (such as LFA2024 Easy Read Guide downloadable using this link).
On each events you may find the following icons, below you can find out what each icon refers to. If there is anything you would like to make sure is on the list, and would make the festival more accessible to you, let us know by emailing eliza.grosvenor@nla.london, or by giving us a call on 020 7636 4044.
Content (digital)
This website is partially compliant with the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines version 2.1 AA standard, due to non-compliances including those listed below:
- Some older images and video do not have alt text – There’s no alt text on many of our older images or video on the website and no technical way to filter those that don’t have alt text We add text alternatives to all images for any new content, and for older content this can be added on request.
- Some older videos or audios do not have captions – Some older videos lack captions, so the information in them isn’t available to people using a screen reader. When we publish new film content we ensure there are captions, subtitles or transcripts added. For older videos, these can be added on request.
- Many of our older PDFs and Word documents don’t meet accessibility standards – for example, they may not be structured so they’re accessible to a screen reader. We add provide alternative forms of documents and forms for any new content. For any old documents that are needed in alternative formats, these can be produced on request.
If you find any problems that aren’t listed above or think we’re not meeting the requirements of the accessibility regulations, get in touch. We aim to get back to you with 7 days.
Reflections and next steps
At LFA, we’ve been working hard to ensure we are ensuring that equity at the heart of LFA and everything we do. We acknowledge that there is much more that needs to be done and are constantly reflecting and working on ways we can improve.
Over the last couple of years, we have created guides for internal and external use around best practice for inclusive events, marketing and engagement with collaborators, commission our first disabled led built project, increased the accessibility of programme navigation, delivered an increasing number of events focusing on accessibility and the city, as well as included disabled members on Curation Panel and other key steering groups. We would love to see more disabled led events in the Festival, and would love to support anyone who is interested to make this happen.
In terms of our website and social platform, we have put in updated guidelines for new documents, and review this on a case by case basis. However, our website hosts dozens of pieces of content from before these guidelines were created which cannot be guaranteed to meet the correct standards. We are constantly working to reduce this number however we have to understand that that the impact of fully meeting the requirements is too much for the organisation to manage at this stage. We appreciate your understanding on this, but also welcome your challenge and feedback. Where possible we are able to translate old documents or difficult to read documents into alternative versions. Please ask us for this information in alternative formats by sending an email to eliza.grosvenor@nla.london or giving us a call on 020 7636 4044.
Over the next 2 years, our goals are to move from best practice to standard practice in relation to accessibility, in every part of the organisation, programme and outputs, becoming an organisation that is disability confident committed, deliver inclusivity training to all staff and collaborators around, in particular in relation to disabilities as well as more accessible content and programming as well as disabled led content and programming and increase inclusivity with all programmes and competitions, working closely with those already leading the way, and therefore providing opportunities for those who are currently unable to engage with the organisation and wider industry.
If there is anything that would help your experience of the festival, whether that be on the website, our guide, or the events themselves, please do not hesitate to send an email or give us a call either.