Welcoming All: Accessibility Design for Festival Settings

Create a festival environment that actively welcomes, supports, and engages individuals of all abilities!

Explore how the elements of accessibility and inclusion can be applied to festival settings through the stages of planning, design, and implementation. This presentation will provide an overview of disability awareness and highlight many of the successful frameworks of accessibility and inclusion.

Presenter Diane Nutting, guides participants to consider a wide range of topics including:

  • design and construction
  • structure and implementation of accessibility services
  • community outreach
  • utilizing volunteers
  • preserving the priority and integrity of your accessibility vision while collaborating with internal and external agencies

Gain tangible strategies and resources for your organization no matter where you are starting on your journey of inclusion.

Presenter: Diane Nutting

Diane Nutting
Diane Nutting, Festival Accessibility Consultant depicts a woman with light colored skin, shoulder-length, wavy brown hair, wearing a red and white scarf around her neck and a red shirt.

Working as a consultant at the intersections of disability, arts, and education, Diane provides training, project coordination, and strategic planning services for a wide range of cultural arts institutions as well as state and local arts agencies including recent collaborations with the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities, the High Museum of Art, Ford’s Theatre, and the United States Botanic Garden. Since 2016 she has worked with the Smithsonian Center for Folklife and Cultural Heritage to serve as the Accessibility Coordinator for the annual Smithsonian Folklife Festival on the grounds of the National Mall, as well as other festival partnerships and events across the Smithsonian campus.

Check out the archived recorded webinar below from a series of free workshops presented in Saint Peter, Saint Paul, and Saint Cloud, Minnesota in October 2019. CART captioning and ASL interpretation were provided.

WORKSHOP PRESENTATION AND HANDOUTS:

Workshop Power Presentation PDF by Diane Nutting
Festival Accessibility Checklist PDF by Diane Nutting


Thanks to:

This session is made possible through a grant from the Minnesota State Arts Board, in partnership with the Minnesota Festival Events Association, and with support from the MN Access Alliance.

Space generously provided by the Bell Museum, Minnesota’s official natural history museum.

MNFEA: Minnesota Festivals & Events Association

Minnesota Festivals and Events Association (MNFEA) is a nonprofit organization specializing in professional development and networking events for those in the festival and event industry. The mission of the Minnesota Festivals and Events Association is to support the people who organize Minnesota’s festivals and events.  To learn more or to become a member, visit www.mnfea.com.

[Minnesota Festival & Events Association logo; from left to right, the shape of the state of Minnesota in blue, block letters MNFEA, all under a sweeping yellow line, ending and on the far right side a pink flag and three progressively larger spirals over the letter A.] 

A design similar to a musical sheet with the words "Minnesota" and "State Arts Board" in upper case letters stacked below.

The Minnesota State Arts Board is a state agency that stimulates and encourages the creation, performance, and appreciation of the arts in the state. To learn more visit http://www.arts.state.mn.us/.

[Minnesota State Arts Board logo; A stamp-like graphic with five elements designed to represent the arts in Minnesota: the visual language of choreography representing dance movements in the color violet; a violet wave of electrical current on an oscilloscope for sound; a brush stroke in the color aqua for the visual arts; violet symbols used to represent the metrical structure of poetry; and a violet musical staff, including a dotted whole note rest. Followed by the words “Minnesota State Arts Board” in aqua.]


The Minnesota Access Alliance (MNAA) works to raise the bar for accessibility across the culture and arts sectors in Minnesota. Accessibility resources and a calendar of accessible arts and cultural events in the state are available at mnaccess.org. You can also share your expertise and learn from others in the MNAA Facebook group.