Last month I attended the Leadership Exchange in Art and Disability (LEAD) conference in Boston, which was the most inclusive conference I have ever been to. And that’s to say a lot, because in the last 25 years, I have attended at least 40 conferences which primarily had an audience of people with disabilities, plus many other ones, and I have not experienced anything like this before.
The conference is organized by the Kennedy Center, and it is about cultural access solutions, allowing participants to learn, network and be inspired.
For full disclosure, I need to mention that I was invited to the accessibility committee of the conference.
When joining the accessibility committee, I was already impressed about how much thought they put into it. They invited people with different disabilities to contribute who are also outstanding accessibility experts. First my thought was that I probably don’t have anything to do here. But I think I did, because the ask from the committee was how to improve what they already had. And yes, they already organized 22 other conferences, so by all means had some lessons learned, but because of that it was even more meaningful that the organizers went above and beyond the requirements to make it better than last year.
I have been to several conferences where they have checked all the legal checkboxes, but from the first moment here I felt that it wasn’t about categories of disabilities, checkboxes or minimum requirements. Rather, the conference was organized keeping the individual in mind, understanding that people with the same disability may have different needs, people may have several disabilities, and just different needs on an individual level. Thus, I felt that this made the conference not only accessible, but fully inclusive.
While there were many things in place, such as live captioning, sighted guide assistance or a quiet room, what made this conference different was that assistance was available at any time.
Each session had an audio describer to describe anything visual that people could listen to through their own mobile device or they could request a separate one.
Room facilitators and room monitors were available to help the presenter or participants in anything they needed. One could just raise their hand and have someone walk up to them to bring the microphone or offer assistance.
Staff members and tipsters (previous participants) were available to answer questions all around the conference.
One could get assistance at the registration desk which was easily approachable.
There was a phone app where participants could join discussions related to the presentation or ask questions.
There was also a mobile number for a last case scenario that one could send a text message and ask for assistance. Though I didn’t use this number, I saved it under my favorites, and it gave me a peace of mind that I can text someone if I can’t figure out something.
And what was really amazing, given all the ways I could get help that I didn’t feel that they were holding my hand. Rather, all this made me feel more independent. If I needed a sighted guide to get somewhere, I had it. If I wanted to ask where to find something, there was somebody to explain it to me. And if I knew how to get somewhere, I did it independently, because I was empowered to do so by all the resources I received at the beginning.
The other thing that was exceptional is the conference guide. It really went into all the details about anything people may need. It didn’t only help prepare for the conference, but ensured that people feel comfortable. For example the organizers encouraged people to move around, reorganize furniture as needed or leave sessions. Instead of listing all the goodies and accommodations here, I would recommend that you read this guide and take inspiration from it for your next event.
Presenters were asked to make their presentation accessible, and they were also provided with accessibility resources, and office hours were available to learn how to create an accessible presentation.
Did everything go well? I don’t know. I’m sure just as there were so many people with so many needs and backgrounds, probably there were just as many experiences. But I think it was much more than I was just lucky, this conference was put together as well as it could be. If you organized an event before, you know that there is always ways to improve and there are always new ideas. But I really appreciate that even after 23 years, the organizers are gathering feedback if it was the first conference and they are dedicated to do even better next year.
And the takeaway is that many things they had done at the Leadership Exchange in Arts and Disability Conference is actually doable at any mainstream conference, even if they do not serve a higher than usual number of people with disabilities. Here it was worth and necessary for example to have room monitors which could be difficult at a small mainstream conference which runs on a shoestring budget. But many of the ideas that you will find in the conference guide is not too difficult to do, maybe with some modifications. But one thing that is a relatively low cost item is to make people feel welcome and offer them a way to ask questions and request help whenever they need it, in order to make an event not only accessible, but genuinely inclusive.
