7 steps to a more accessible networking event
Accessibility is, unfortunately, rarely a priority to event organisers. It’s often seen as ‘too difficult’ or perhaps ‘too expensive’. However, not only is accessibility a legal requirement, and the right thing to do, it’s also rarely particularly complicated or costly.
Remember, more than 20% of the workforce has a disability. If your events aren’t accessible, you and your organisation will be automatically excluding a significant proportion of your potential attendees and customers. Moreover, accessibility for disabled people is, often, accessibility for everyone. Many of the tips below will actually make your event more accessible and enjoyable for a huge range of potential attendees – and most will cost you nothing except a little forethought.
Choose your venue with accessibility in mind
Accessibility needs to be at the forefront of your mind from the very start of the event planning process. The event venue is a vital consideration, but can all too often become a problem when access is only considered later in the process. When searching for your venue, make sure to include accessibility on your list of essential criteria.
What makes a venue a good choice? Firstly, make sure that the building is accessible to those with reduced mobility, externally and internally. Are the doors wide enough to accommodate a wheelchair user? Are there steps to enter the venue, or to move around once inside? Is there an accessible toilet close to where you will hold the event? You should also consider options for travelling to the event. Is there parking nearby, including specific spaces that can be reserved for disabled guests? Is the venue well-connected with public transport links for those who may be unable to (or choose not to!) drive?
This kind of information may be available on the website of the potential venue, or you may need to make specific enquiries. Depending on the venue you have in mind, you might also be able to find more detailed access information online, on a website like AccessAble – which can also be a great starting point for finding local accessible venues. It’s also often a good idea to visit the venue yourself to confirm accessibility arrangements, ahead of booking the event.
Remember to also consider accessibility within the venue when setting up your event. For example, make sure that any seating arrangements include space for wheelchair users to manoeuvre through aisles, and minimise any unnecessary distance between different aspects of the event.
Provide quiet spaces
Try to have a designated ‘quiet room’ available throughout the event. For many people, networking events can be an overwhelming sensory or social experience, so it is important to have a suitable space to escape to if required. Provide comfortable seating and drinking water, try to dim any harsh lighting, and consider installing signs to remind people to keep noise to a minimum. At larger events, it would also be worth allocating a member of staff to monitor noise levels. You should also think carefully about the location of the room; it should be close to the main event so as to be easily accessible but also needs to be at a sufficient distance to minimise the overspill of noise. In practice, this will depend on a number of factors including the size and type of event and the unique acoustics of the venue – again, a visit to the venue ahead of the event will enable you to scope out potential options.
Enable closed captions
If your event is online, make sure to enable closed captions to assist D/deaf attendees and those with auditory processing differences. Some platforms allow attendees to do this themselves but others, like Zoom, require the event organiser to enable the facility for participants to then use as they wish. This is a great example of something that’s entirely free and requires close to zero effort from the organiser, but can make a massive difference to many potential attendees.
It’s worth noting, however, that these kinds of automatically generated captions are not the most accurate. If you have the budget, and especially if your event will involve lots of technical vocabulary which automatic tools tend to struggle with, consider investing in live human-produced captioning services.
Captions can also be integrated into in-person events, especially those that involve times when only one person is speaking, such as presenter-led sessions, or whole-group activities. For example, they can be displayed using a projector or screen at the front of the room. Or, if you’re using a professional service, you may be able to get a link to give attendees access to live captioning on their own devices.
Hire a BSL interpreter
It is good practice to make a sign language interpreter available at your event. Expecting attendees to provide their own interpreter is usually prohibitively expensive, and while you may be tempted to simply state ‘interpreter available on request’, there are several reasons that mean, budget permitting, it is better to provide the facility as standard practice.
Firstly, requiring attendees to get in touch with a request adds a significant administrative barrier, particularly because requests usually need to be made in advance. Secondly, some potential attendees may be hesitant to make a specific request, especially if they’ve previously faced negative experiences with similar requests.
Hiring and providing an interpreter for your event without waiting for a request demonstrates a firm commitment to inclusion and accessibility, reduces the workload and stress of D/deaf potential attendees, and maximises the size of your audience to include those who would otherwise be deterred or those who would otherwise be unable to make that last-minute decision to come along.
Make sure event materials are accessible
It’s not just the event itself that needs to be accessible – you also need to consider your marketing and promotional materials, and any other resources relating to the event. There are plenty of good guides available online (for example, this website, or this page), but as a minimum, you should consider the following points:
Make sure that any images have a plain text description – this can be within the body of the post itself or most social media sites have specific functionality to add alt text. Again, there are lots of guides and examples of good (and bad!) alt text available online, such as this one or this one.
Think about the colour contrast of visual materials, particularly making sure there is sufficient contrast between text and background colours. For materials like presentation slides, try to avoid pure white backgrounds and use a very soft pastel colour instead.
If you use hashtags, capitalise the first letter of each word to ensure it can be understood by people using screen readers. For example, instead of “#ourgreatevent”, you’d use “#OurGreatEvent”. This is called Camel Case.
Any videos should be captioned or, at the very least, have an accompanying transcript. If you use auto-generation tools, make sure to edit them yourself for accuracy.
Use clear and concise language. Make sentences shorter where possible. For long blocks of text, make sure to use headings and paragraphs appropriately.
Create an accessibility rider
Following these tips will enable you to make your event more accessible for disabled people, but you’ll still need to make sure potential attendees are aware of the arrangements. Make sure to provide key information anywhere the event is advertised (eg. “This event will be BSL-interpreted”), and then offer a full ‘accessibility rider’ for the event with more complete information.
As a minimum, this should include detailed information on the event and its timings and structure, all the accessibility arrangements that you have made, images and/or videos of the space in which the event will be held, and contact details for a named person who can respond promptly to any queries. The aim is to provide all the information that might be needed for someone to make a decision as to whether the event will be accessible to them, without needing to repeatedly get in touch with questions.
Make use of technology
Finally, it’s important to remember that however much effort you put into accessibility, not everyone may be able to attend an in-person event. As we’ve seen throughout the pandemic, modern technology means that people can engage in events without having to leave the house.
Consider making arrangements to permit online attendance alongside in-person. This will make your event more accessible not only to disabled people but also to many other groups who may find it more difficult to attend in-person events, including those with caring responsibilities, financial constraints, or who live in other areas of the country.
If the technological side of organising a fully hybrid event is too challenging, think about ways to encourage asynchronous engagement. For example, can you live stream the session? Perhaps you could set up an online networking group on a platform like LinkedIn for attendees (and those who were unable to attend) to join after the event itself? Or are there presenter-led sessions as part of the event, which you could record and make available online?
You should also consider integrating online-only networking opportunities into your annual events calendar, to ensure that everyone has the chance to fully engage.
Conclusion
Accessibility doesn’t have to be complicated or expensive. As we’ve demonstrated, there are many no- and low-cost ways to make your events more accessible. Just by committing to accessibility, and implementing a few changes at a time, you can easily open up your events to more and more people.
Here at SIC, we run events throughout the year (mainly online), and you can register for many of these for free. Check out our full events calendar here.
