SPONSORSHIP COULD BE EVERYTHING FOR ARTSLINE'S DISABILITY ACCESS PROJECT

Attitude is Everything was set up in response to young disabled people's complaints of unfair treatment at live music venues, clubs and festivals in the UK. Artsline, the disability access information service, realised that the music industry was not aware of their obligations under the Disability Discrimination Act and the project was set up to work positively with the industry to raise awareness and launched in September 2000. The organisation has already made significant steps within the music industry. They are working in partnership with the Mean Fiddler Music Group plc to improve access at all their bars, clubs, music venues and festivals. They run a Charter of Best Practice that a number of venues have signed up to which includes both access and attitude elements and lists simple steps that can be undertaken to improve disabled people's experiences when attending. With help from a team of mystery shoppers they obtain feedback on how accessible venues are and how they are managed from a customer's perspective and feed this information back to the venues such that they can look to make improvements. They also offer disability equality training and undertake access audits to advise on adaptations that may be required. They are looking for sponsorship in particular to enable them to increase their core activities and also to cover the costs of Attitude, their bi-monthly club night (see www.clubattitude.co.uk for details of past and forthcoming events). This promotes quality disabled and non-disabled artists and DJs to an inclusive audience at an accessible venue. This is an exciting venture and Artsline are always trying to improve the accessibility features that they offer such that these events become open to a wider and more diverse audience. They are keen to use these events to further market the work of their project.   Contact: Tom Head. Tel.: 0207 388 2227. Other contact details in our Arts: Other/Disability Arts section.   E&OE