Access At The Edinburgh Fringe – The Expert’s Guide

Joshua Hepple goes to The Edinburgh Fringe Festival every year in his wheelchair. He’s experienced all there is to see in terms of accessibility difficulties at The Fringe. Whether it’s being carried up stairways or tackling the cobblestones he’s been there and done it. We asked him to give us his expert guide to access at The Fringe:

The Edinburgh Festival Fringe is the biggest celebration of arts on the planet, with over 2700 different shows and hundreds of venues. The Fringe prides itself on being open to all  as it is open access and does not restrict anyone from performing.

The Fringe however is not accessible to all disabled patrons, let alone disabled performers. Around 35 to 45% of the Fringe is inaccessible to wheelchair users wishing to go to a show. This is mainly due to the historic nature of Edinburgh’s buildings as many of them are listed and cannot therefore be adapted. Some care so little about disabled patrons that they build stages over the accessible entrances to venues thus not making spaces accessible. It is hard to imagine how this can be justified, though it does very much happen. It is not only the venues that may not be ideal for wheelchair users. Edinburgh is built on an extinct volcano so makes some streets very steep, especially the well known Royal Mile. The cobbles in Edinburgh are not great for wheelchair users either.

By no means is the wheelchair access the definitive benchmark for access. The Fringe tries very hard to encourage many different types of access to performances. Not many shows are actually signed due to the high cost and lack of signers around but companies realise that there are many different ways to cater for people with hearing impairments such using BSL within the performance and having dialogue projected on to the stage. More shows should do this equally.

Due to the layout of the Fringe touch tours very rarely work. There is rarely more than a half an hour turn around between performances in venues. Not many shows are audio described.

There are occasionally performers who try to consider people with learning impairments in their shows but generally these people unfortunately go unconsidered. There have been attempts to promote autistic shows within the Fringe but as so much discretion falls to the companies themselves there is only so much the Fringe can do.

The Fringe is also promoting disability equality training to different front of house teams. Some venues such as The Pleasance which makes a huge effort with accessibility generally take up this training where as others would never consider it. Working with so many venues and with so many acts it is difficult to impose uniform guidelines although there is absolutely gradual but steady improvement.  Access at the Fringe is definitely on the agenda for everyone involved.

Josh Hepple is working at this year’s Fringe as a disabled reviewer, helping shows to become even more accessible. We hope he has a brilliant couple of weeks at The Fringe!