Accessibility

Indian Summer Festival is committed to providing accessible experiences in person and online. We are actively working to improve the accessibility of our festival and gratefully accept feedback on our initiatives. 

If you have an access request, or would like to ask questions/offer feedback about the accessibility of Indian Summer Festival events, please get in touch with our team at [email protected], or by phone at +1 604 283 9172 ext. 1.


AUDIENCE ACCESSIBILITY INFORMATION 

COVID PROTOCOLS:

Indian Summer Festival will adhere to the pandemic guidelines of the Provincial Health Office and the rules of the venues in which we operate. ISF2023 has a mix of fully indoor, fully outdoor, and indoor/outdoor events. Some of our venues may require masks to be worn indoors; we will keep attendees informed on requirements. In the instances where masks are not required, we will encourage attendees to wear masks, without enforcing their use.

For indoor events at Performance Works, we will allow guests the option to seat in a Masked Only seating area, which will be reserved for masked guests, and distanced from unmasked seating.

MOBILITY ACCESS:

In 2023, Indian Summer Festival will be presented primarily through our main festival hub: Performance Works on Granville Island. We also have one event at the Chan Centre for the Performing Arts, one at The Playhouse, and a few outdoor activations around Granville Island. Both of our indoor venues are accessible to people using mobility aids, including wide and flat entrances, access to ramps and elevators, wheelchair and scooter-accessible washrooms, and appropriate seating. For more detailed venue access information, please see venue-specific links. 

PRIORITY & ASSIGNED SEATING: 

With the exception of our event at the Chan Centre, and The Vancouver Playhouse, seating is first-come-first-served at our events. We offer early entry and/or assigned priority seating for people with invisible disabilities, low vision, or chronic pain. We can arrange this onsite, or contact us to plan in advance. You will also be prompted to indicate any seating requirements during the checkout process when purchasing tickets through Eventbrite. 

COMPANION TICKETING: 

A complimentary ticket will be provided (subject to availability) to anyone requiring a companion for access. For assistance booking a companion ticket please contact us, or purchase a ticket and you will be prompted to add a complimentary companion ticket at checkout.

LOW-VISION FRIENDLY: 

Some festival events are “low-vision friendly” and accessible for people who are blind or partially sighted without the need for a visual description. These audio-centric events include our annual Ideas Series of panel conversations and artist talks as well as some music performances. Events with high visual content will not be marked as low-vision friendly. Guests who are blind or partially sighted are eligible for complimentary companion ticketing (subject to availability) and priority seating. Indian Summer Festival is proud to partner with VocalEye to increase the accessibility of our programming to audience members who are blind and partially sighted. 

  • Indian Summer Festival & VocalEye Zoom Watch Party! This watch party will centre the experiences of Blind and partially sighted audiences, and will include a sampling from various Indian Summer Festival 2021 events.During this watch party, visual artworks and performances will be described by VocalEye and Indian Summer Festival staff with plenty of time for pausing, asking questions and adding context and background information.Wednesday, July 26th, 630pm. Free, register by emailing . Please let them know your viewing location and if you identify as a member of the blind/partially sighted community or as a sighted guest.

FEATURE LOW-VISION EVENT:

Join us at our fourth-annual VocalEye/Indian Summer Festival Digital Watch Party (held on Zoom) on Wednesday July 26th. While this event is open to all audiences, this watch party will centre and privilege the experiences of people who are blind and partially sighted. 

Registration is required. Register by contacting [email protected] or 604-364-5949. Please share in the email if you identify as a member of the blind/partially sighted community or as a sighted guest. 

ASL:

We recognize that surface-level English to ASL translations are insufficient for the poetics of Sign Language. As a result, we do not offer ASL translations by default at our events. We are working on having captioning available for all spoken word events, and will announce that availability when it is confirmed on each event page. 

However, if Sign Language will make an event accessible for you, we are happy to organize ASL or Deaf interpretation, or both. Please email [email protected] before June 24th 2023 to request.

BE SCENT-SENSITIVE:

Indian Summer Festival emails all ticket holders requesting that attendees refrain from wearing scented products at all of our events. However it is important to note we do not enforce this policy, nor do our venues have permanent scent-free policies in place.

COMMUNITY TICKETING:

Most ISF2023 events offer subsidized tickets for individuals facing financial barriers in accessing arts programming (subject to availability). We encourage audience members to self-select according to what accurately reflects their financial capacity.

Ask yourself:

  • Are you and your family homeowners or landowners?
  • Have you attended private education, or have an advanced degree?
  • Can you easily access and afford healthcare services?
  • Do you have no debt and/or disposable income?
  • Do you have Citizenship in the country you live?

If your answers were all ‘Yes’ please consider the Pay It Forward Admission price point. This allows us to offer our subsidized tickets to audience members in need.

If your answers were mostly ‘Yes’ or evenly split – we suggest the General Admission price point.

If your answers were majority or all ‘No’, we suggest the Subsidized price point (subject to availability and offered across all of our ticketed events).

(thanks to Meenakshi Das of Data is for Everyone for the sliding scale framework)