Sense and sensibility

October’s deadline for the Disability Discrimination Act to come into force is rapidly approaching. Theatres nationwide are busy addressing the many issues surrounding this legislation.

For many old theatres, such as those in London’s West End, it is not always feasible to make venues totally accessible from a physical point of view. There is a variety of reasons for this, including restrictions imposed on listed buildings. In these circumstances, the Act is sympathetic to access solutions being “reasonably” achieved.

Getting in on the Act

An estimated five million people in the UK have some form of visual or hearing disability. There are relatively inexpensive ways to assist those with such sensory disabilities.

Most venues should be able to provide subtitles and signed performances for hearing-impaired theatre-goers, as well as audio description for the partially-sighted and blind. They could also provide information in other formats such as large print and tape.

The Access for Disabled People to Arts Premises Today (ADAPT) Trust, a charity founded in 1989, has become a leading agency operating nationwide that advises and assists arts and heritage venues to create effective access for everyone.

Headed by Stewart Coulter, the organisation offers a service known as Sight & Sound. This offers help to improve access for people with sensory impairments. ADAPT also offers an access consultancy and auditing service, giving preliminary and detailed advice and disability awareness training.

Providing sensory access is fairly straightforward as venues need not alter their premises structurally to provide this service. The key to the solution is to offer dual-channel systems through infrared or radio frequency-based systems. These solutions can simultaneously transmit sound reinforcement to the hard of hearing and audio description through discrete headsets to the sight impaired.

Audio description can be supplied by in-house staff or through independent organisations such as London-based Vocaleyes. Its team of audio describers operate nationwide, providing verbal commentary that describes the stage, set, characters, costumes, facial expression, body language and action during the silent parts of the show.

Infrared or radio-based, the solution is the same; the skill is to provide a system that best meets a theatre’s needs. In venues where the set layout is altered dramatically between shows, an infrared system can be limited. Changes in the location of the proscenium arch or auditorium layout can affect the availability of the signal.

For outdoor productions, a radio solution is the only option as infrared signals are damaged by sunlight. For theatres situated in built-up areas where radio frequency interference can occur, infrared systems are a more effective solution.

London-based Orbital Sound offers a digital audio radio-based product from Sennheiser that overcomes radio frequency obstacles. Another radio-based option is from manufacturer Trantec Systems. Its PT1 was originally designed for use in fitness centres but can be used successfully in theatres and other public venues. With up to 32 channels, the PT1 can easily operate two channels simultaneously.

In the past many theatres have installed induction loop systems, which are an effective option for the hard of hearing. Manufacturer Millbank is one supplier of such systems. While induction loops offer a discrete solution, they cannot provide the second audio channel, which is now essential to facilitate audio description.

Orbital Sound’s sales and installations division has recently supplied the Sennheiser infrared system into theatres nationwide. These operate alongside an induction loop system or in some cases replace it completely, so the overall maintenance can be minimised, streamlining systems management in the process.

The Ambassador Theatre Group’s building services manager Richard Kiernan collaborated with ADAPT to ensure that its 22 theatres nationwide are fully sensory aware. Despite working in many Grade II listed buildings, including the Piccadilly, Duke of York’s and Wyndhams theatres where heritage restrictions reign, the group has ensured that every venue is sensory friendly.

By installing a fleet of infrared systems the group will offer at least one audio-transcribed show during every production’s run.

The Ambassador Group is investigating the opportunity to offer a captioning service to help hard of hearing and deaf people further augment their theatre experience. Captioning is a way of converting the spoken word into visible text. This makes it possible for those with hearing impairment to further access live performances.

Stagetext offers a solution which, via data cabling or a wireless link, provides real time captions on a scrolling led screen. It also captures sound effects and offstage noises and can be provided in a number of languages.

Under the supervision of access officer Pat Collcutt, The Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) in Stratford-upon-Avon was the first theatre in the UK to offer audio description. It maintains a strict policy that at least two shows per run are fully sensory enabled.

Having recently installed its own captioning system, the RSC has also introduced a radio-based, dual-channel system. A Sennheiser UHF 300 series in-ear monitoring system was installed by AVT Communications, which offers the freedom to receive a signal anywhere in the building. This allows a sight-impaired patron to enjoy a drink at the bar, for example, while listening to an audio-transcribed introduction of the theatre show.

Collcutt, like Kiernan, maintains that once equipment has been installed, budget must be made available for regular maintenance. It is also vital to offer training programmes to ensure that front of house staff in particular are up to speed with the latest issues.

Active promotion by in-house marketing teams and individual production companies is also imperative to ensure that the availability of sensory access is communicated through access-friendly web sites, programmes and organisations such as the Royal National Institute of the Deaf and the Royal National Institute of the Blind.