93% of disabled delegates facing barriers at events should be a wake-up call, not a footnote. We sit down with Catherine Grinyer, (Attendable), Shani Dhanda (accessibility consultant and broadcaster), and Orla Pearson (My ClearText and Access Loop) to get honest about why event accessibility is still so inconsistent and what it takes to fix it without hand-waving.
We dig into the thinking behind The Accessible Event Show and why it matters now: post-pandemic events are back, sustainability is finally mainstream, and yet disability inclusion still gets treated as optional. We talk practical delivery, not theory, from live captioning and accessible livestreams to the “small” production details that make or break participation for speakers and attendees. Orla explains how captions support far more than one person who asks, including deaf and hard of hearing audiences, people using English as a second language, and many neurodivergent attendees.
We also cover the reality of stakeholder buy-in across organisers, agencies, and venues, and why budgets and timelines expose whether values are real. The European Accessibility Act comes up as a clear legal push, and we reference research showing how common access barriers are at conferences and live events. Most importantly, we turn the mirror back on the industry: disabled people need to benefit as speakers, staff, and suppliers, not only as audience members.
The Accessible Event Show returns on 29 October 2026 at The Drum in Wembley, London, with a free-to-attend format and an accessible livestream. A US edition is also coming on 4 December in the DC or Virginia area. Learn more at accessibleeventshow.com and follow along on LinkedIn. If this conversation helps, subscribe, share the episode with an event pro, and leave a review so more people build events that welcome everyone.
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