Transforming Festivals with Inclusion: The Power of Ability Fest

Hi everyone, I thought I'd do an audio version of my newsletter this week because it's in keeping with what the newsletter is about and that is talking about going to a great festival this weekend called Ability Fest. So this is the newsletter as it reads.

I'm excited for this week's event attendance because this week I'm going to Ability Fest, a first of its kind music festival promoting access and inclusion within the music industry.

This festival has been going for five years, and this year is the first time it's expanding to Meanjin, which is Brisbane. There are a few reasons I'm interested in attending this event.

Number one, as an able-bodied person, although I do my best to explore and implement what I need to, to ensure my events are accessible, I'm just not going to see it from the perspective of someone with a disability.

Ability Fest was developed by Dylan Alcott and the mission is to use the power of music to bring people together and to help normalise disability whilst setting a standard for accessibility, inclusion and diversity at all events. You can find out more about Ability Fest here.

This festival will give me an opportunity to see everything that's needed to be incorporated into our festivals and events, and I'll come back to you here and share my insights with you.

Reason number two. I want to see this venue as a festival space. Victoria Park used to be a golf course and in 2021 the golf course was closed but the grounds were open to the public and now it's an amazing park.

But it's a very hilly park though. As you can imagine it was once a golf course with long sweeping greens, huge hills and gullies with a magnificent clubhouse, the Victoria Park clubhouse atop the hill overlooking it all. Now, I've been here for a food festival before, and I could see the challenges the vendors were facing with levelling their cooking stations, not to mention levelling marquees, tables and toilets.

So, I'm keen to see if this is in a different part of the park, and how it rolls out as a music festival venue.

And then, of course, number three, as many of you might know if you've been following me for a while, I really love and want to support as many events and festivals as I can by buying tickets to events.

Yes, I pay to attend at least 90 percent of the events that I go to, and so promoting my attendance and writing about all the amazing things I experience at the event, and of course taking the learnings, sometimes good, sometimes bad. Sometimes not so good, back to my students and clients who have entrusted me to share with them all that I know on the event scene.

Now, I think there are still a few tickets available for Ability Fest, so jump on the website and check it out if you're interested in going along. And if you are going, let me know if you want to meet up. I'll be there from about 3pm onwards on Saturday, and I can't wait to hear some great music, gain some valuable insights, and connect with a vibrant, fun community in the best of ways.

So let me know what you are up to this week. And a quick reminder, the next round of the eight week event plan starts on Monday the 4th of November. Enrolments are now open, and it's been a bumper year of event conference and festival attendance to share with my groups so you can find out more about it www.eventplannersworkshop.com.au/8weeks.

So, cheers for now, signing off, the real Sally Porteous.

And if you don't know me, the reason I do that is because I want you to know that I write my newsletters. I do use AI a lot. I use ChatGPT an enormous amount0, but I don't use AI to communicate with you. So there you go. This is me. It's the real me, reading my newsletter back to you.