The Cure support Music Without Barriers

Photo from Attitude is Everything.

From NME:

The Cure, Alt-J, Franz Ferdinand support campaign to improve gig access for disabled fans

Music Without Barriers aims to get venues and festivals to sign up to a best practice charter.

The Cure, Alt-J, Franz Ferdinand and Toy are among a host of artists who have signed up to a campaign to help improve gig access for deaf and disabled music fans.

The online Music Without Barriers campaign is led by charity Attitude is Everything, which works to improve Deaf and disabled people’s access to live music. It wants to encourage more UK venues and festivals to join the 90-plus who have signed up to the charity’s Charter of Best Practice.

The Charter of Best Practice encourages event producers to go beyond their basic legal requirements to ensure disabled access, and promote four key principles – that improving access to gigs and festivals doesn't have to be expensive; that there is a strong business case for improving access; that it's vital deaf and disabled fans have access to information before events; and to lose the assumption that all disabled people are wheelchair users.

Mystery Jets' Blaine Harrison, an Attitude is Everything patron said in a statement: "The work Attitude is Everything do is close to my heart, because I strongly feel that everyone should be able to experience live music. Whether it’s watching a friend’s band at a local venue or watching Radiohead from the disabled platform at Glastonbury, gigs should be accessible to everyone. I would like to see more venues taking stock of what they can do to accommodate a more diverse audience. It is also really important that as many artists as possible get involved to show their support to this great campaign. The barriers are there to be broken down."

Artists who have already signed up to the campaign include Alt-J, Slow Club, The Cure’s Robert Smith, Anna Calvi, Enter Shikari, Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos, Jimi Goodwin, Frank Turner, Toy, Tom Odell, Summer Camp, Darren Hayman, The Wytches, Stealing Sheep, and Slowdive’s Rachel Goswell. (Thanks Aaron)

More articles about this: RTT News, Diffuser, ContactMusic, Gigwise.