Kendal Poetry Festival Access Statement
This year the festival will take place on Zoom. All audience members will be issued with invitations when they buy their tickets to two free half-hour sessions: “Zoom for Beginners”: Thursday 4th February, 19.00; and “How to make the Most of Your Online Festival Experience”: Thursday 11th February, 19.00.
We will be using the Otter transcription app for every event at the festival. Otter uses Artificial Intelligence to create a real-time transcription and subtitles. Whilst we recognise that this service will not be 100% accurate, we hope the relatively high level of accuracy will make our events more accessible.
We will also invite all poets taking part in the festival to screen share the poems they are planning to read. Although we cannot guarantee all readings will be screen-shared, we hope by having these conversations between organisations and performers, we can start to work together to improve accessibility.
We recognise the extra financial strain that people who identify as disabled are under, particularly in the current climate. Kendal Poetry Festival would like to offer free tickets to all readings to anyone who identifies as disabled. We are also committed to the creativity and nurturing of young people and would like to offer free tickets to anyone under the age of 18. This year we have also extended our offer to any residents of care homes in Cumbria.