It’s hard to be hugely positive about the year ahead, or indeed about anything, in these gloomy days of January but we wanted to tell everyone to keep their chins up because 2014 looks set to be a really exciting year! There are so many massive events going on this year: some we see every year, some that we don’t get to see so often and some that we never thought we’d see. All are very much dates for the diary.
Here’s our look forward at the year ahead. These are a few key dates from the worlds of style, sport, culture and disability that we’ll be looking out for and discussing on BBS during 2014:
14th-18th February – London Fashion Week AW14 starting on Valentine’s day, LFW will be a chance for fashionistas to spend time with the thing that they really love: clothes. We’ll be covering some of the trends we find during the week as well as reporting back on how accurate Fiona’s predictions were from last year’s Spring Summer 2014 week.
2nd March – The Oscars None of this year’s front runners are disability issue movies, which may not be the worst thing in the world. 12 Years A Slave, American Hustle and Gravity look likely to take home most of the statues this year and we’ll be looking into stylish accessible cinemas to see them in.
3rd March – Oscar Pistorius’ trial is set to begin. Not exactly something to look forward to but this trial will undoubtedly catch people’s attention, particularly those with an interest in disability sport. We just hope it won’t overshadow…
7th-16th March – The Winter Paralympics. Will the Winter Games capture our imaginations in the same way as London 2012? Can’t wait to see how everything goes in Sochi.
26th April – Shakespeare’s 450th Birthday There will be all sorts of theatrical events all year round to celebrate the life and works of the Bard. Highlights include The Globe theatre’s first Hamlet in modern times which will begin on Shakespeare’s birthday before heading off on a two year long world tour. The entire nation will be caught up in Shakepeare week during the 17-23th March and celebrations are being planned in Stratford upon Avon for the actual birthday weekend
It’s also Dylan Thomas’ 100th birthday this year, on October 27th. Cultural events have been planned for this too, for all poetry fans.
Late in May – The Chelsea Flower Show. Chelsea marks the first event of the traditional British social season. The Season includes all sorts of cultural and sporting events such as Glyndebourne, Ascot, Henley and The Proms. We covered their access last year and will be bringing more details this year too.
12th June – 13th July – The World Cup Despite the sense of impending doom around the England team, the World Cup will be no smaller or less all consuming event than usual this year. No point trying to make it to Brazil but we’re going to look for stylish and accessible bars to watch the games from over here. It should also be interesting to see how Rio copes ahead of the Paralympics in 2016.
23rd June – 4th July – Wimbledon For two weeks the nation will be asking one question: can Andy Murray win Wimbledon again? If he does he’s sure to become Sir Andy sooner rather than later, but if he doesn’t will we all go back to not liking him that much?
Of course, we’ll also have updates from the disappointingly brief and under-watched Wheelchair Tennis competition.
June 20th-28th Women’s and July 3 – 15 2014 – Men’s Wheelchair Basketball World Championship Both male and female GB teams will be headed to the World Championships this summer. The women’s team go to Toronto and the men’s to South Korea. It would be great to see either or both of them come back with a medal!
25th-29th June – Glastonbury We’re looking forward to the festival season, although the mud is not to everyone’s taste. Glastonbury is surely the best of them all with Arcade Fire confirmed this year and rumours of some incredible artists being added, including Bowie and Led Zeppelin! It’s also much more accessible than one might expect although no one would blame you for preferring to watch it on TV instead.
1st-5th & 15th-20th – Monty Python Reunion at the O2 Arena You’ll have to beg, borrow or steal a ticket to get to it – tickets for the first reunion performance sold out in a record 43.5 seconds and the added dates will probably all be gone by the time you read this, let alone the accessible seating – but it’s going to be a major event that will get people talking. It will be interesting to see if the Pythons can still pull it off these days. Hopefully, there will be more dates added or at least be a DVD released afterwards.
5th July – Tour de France starts in Yorkshire. Last time the Tour came through England no British cyclist had ever won the Yellow Jersey in its 93 year history. Seven years later, we’ve had two British winners in a row, so we can probably expect some impressive crowds.
Starting in Leeds the English stages take in Harrogate, Sheffield, York, Cambridge and London as well as passing through many areas in between. Other than the busy crowds there’s no reason it shouldn’t be accessible – we’ll have to find out more. The Tour will leave England after the 7th of July and end in Paris on the 27th.
23rd July to the 3rd of August – The Commonwealth Games It’s Glasgow’s chance to host the Games this year and although there isn’t a full scale Para alternative, there will be a handful of medals given out in a variety of sports.
August – Edinburgh Fringe We were all over the Fringe last year, with accessibility guides and tips from less able stalwarts of the festival. We aim to bring more in 2014 and hope to get a chance to go and see some of the funniest less able performers in the world.
24th-29th August – Para-Dressage at the World Equestrian Games Expect to see BBS sports blogger Sophie Christiansen amongst the many Brits going for gold in Normandy this summer.
12th to 16th September – London Fashion Week SS15 More fashion in September as we find out what everyone will be wearing in 2015. We’ll be looking, throughout 2014, to find out from fashion insiders about the best 2015 looks for wheelchair users and hopefully from some less able models too.
18th September – Scottish Referendum This is not really something that we would normally consider a Blue Badge Style issue but it’s too huge to miss out. It’s amazing to think that by the end of the year Scotland may have decided to leave the UK. Clearly this will be a major talking point in 2014.
6-12th October – London Cocktail Week We love cocktails + we love London = we love London Cocktail Week. There should be another great offer this year so you can enjoy relatively cheap cocktails in the capital’s trendiest bars. We’ll happily spend this week ‘researching’.
3rd December – International Disability Day A long way off but we aim to plan something special to mark this day of awareness raising for people with disabilities.
December – Christmas, New Year celebrations and then the whole thing starts again!
As you can see there are some pretty awesome events coming up in 2014. What other accessible, disability related or other events are you looking forward to?