"It makes business sense to make accessibility a priority"
Charlotte Flach
Editor, C&IT
Lizzy Eaton, Founder of Oddity Events, summarises the keys points of her agency's new Inclusive Events Playbook.
What has sparked the creation of the Inclusive Events Playbook?
A few years ago, before I founded Oddity, I became an advocate for people with disabilities at events after I realised how many mistakes I'd been making in my career, including an incident at my old agency where I hadn't considered the experience of my colleague who has a disability while planning an event. Even though I had been in the events industry for nearly 10 years at that time, I had never had training on accessibility. I didn't know where to start when it came to learning and gaining awareness about the issues people with disabilities face. When I started Oddity, I wanted to use my platform to bring other event professionals on my learning journey to drive change. Following various engagements, including attending the Purple Tuesday Celebration at Piccadilly Circus in 2022, I decided to commit the Oddity team and me to a year of intensive research, training and journaling, resulting in the creation of the Playbook. We have already had some amazing feedback, including from international readers. I hope it becomes a useful resource for other event professionals who don't know where to start and build a community of people striving to raise the standard for the disabled attendee experience.
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