Following the success of the audio-described Tactile Tour program in 2010, Sculpture by the Sea are partnering with Accessible Arts to offer people with vision impairment and people with intellectual disability the opportunity to engage with art in a hands-on guided experience.
Accessible Arts hosted the Festivals Forum in July 2011, to review access for people with disability at festival events throughout NSW. Representatives from fifteen festivals large and small, and supporting arts organisations, gathered at the Utzon Room at Sydney Opera House to attend the three hour forum.
As part of an agreement to support festivals to develop accessibility, Accessible Arts has provided training to Sculpture by the Sea staff for the third consecutive year. Twelve staff from all sections of the organisation attended three hours of Disability Awareness and Access training to further embed accessibility practices throughout their organisation.
Festivals are increasing in popularity and continue to give expression and exposure to innovative creative arts and culture, which in turn adds greater vibrancy to communities who share in these occasions. Accessible Arts will present a forum in July, to bring festival producers together to discuss the unique challenges they face when improving access to festival events.
Nastasia Campanella is a Sydney based freelance print, radio and online journalist who also happens to be blind. She recently attended one of the audio described tactile tours presented by Sculpture by the Sea in partnership with Accessible Arts and reported on the experience.News
Sydney Film Festival Wrap: New access technology provided and new doco prize awarded
This year's partnership with the Sydney Film Festival delivered an Accessible Cinema strand within the festival program that included accessible film screenings, two industry forums, an opportunity to experience Rear Window access technology and five films that directly addressed living with a disability.
The Accessible Cinema program was launched by Professor Ron McCallum AO, United Nations Special Rapporteur for Disability, followed by a screening of A Good Man, (dir Safina Uberoi) about a struggling Australian farmer, his wife who has quadriplegia and their plans to open a brothel in the NSW rural town of Inverall. This documentary was an entrant in the 2009 Foxtel Australian Documentary Price and went on to be awarded tie for first place along Contact (dir Martin Butler, Bentely Dean).
Safina Uberoi joined Genevieve Clay, 2009 Tropfest winner and Lester Bostock, founder of Metroscreen's Indigenous Television Production mentor training scheme and President of the Indigenous Disability Network, at the forum 'Representation and Engagement: enriched filmmaking by cast and crews with disability." This forum offered filmmakers, cast and crew an opportunity to create dialogue about the experiences of producing film about, by or with people who have disabilities.
Trialing Rear Window access technology at a special event for industry stakeholders and audiences with captioning and audio description access requirements, provided an opportunity for Accessible Arts to introduce this 
technology within the festival environment.
This was followed by two public screenings using Rear Window captioning for the first time in Australasia, initiating an important step forward in supporting and enabling the expansion of access technology in cinemas and theatres across Australia.
A screening of the film Cheri, (dir Stephen Frears), also included audio description in its use of the Rear Window technology, providing a fully accessible cinema experience and ensuring people with disability the opportunity to enjoy 
one of the largest film festivals in the world.
To find out more about cinemas that provide captioning and audio description go to www.yourlocalcinema.com.au.
