Participation means being there – events for and with people with disabilities

Attending large events such as festivals, concerts, sporting events or trade fairs often fails for people with disabilities due to a lack of accessibility. This is why the Austrian agency FullAccess Event Services run by Christina Riedler and Martina Gollner advises not only major events such as the Donauinselfest, but also sports venues, trade fairs, conferences, escape room game developers and university-related facilities.

"FullAccess supports event organizers in making their events accessible by providing advice, diversity-sensitive communication and an on-site team to make these events more accessible for visitors with all kinds of disabilities," say the entrepreneurs.

FullAccess was founded in May 2016 by Christina Riedler, a doctoral student at the Institute of Theater, Film and Media Studies in Vienna, community manager and volunteer companion for people with visual impairments for around 15 years, and University of Applied Sciences Vienna Campus graduate and social worker Martina Gollner, who has been severely visually impaired since birth.

In Switzerland, Christina Spindler takes a slightly different approach with inclusivevents: "We enable people with various disabilities to work as hostesses, helpers and assistants at events according to their abilities." In doing so, inclusivevents focuses on the abilities and not the disability. Spindler: "We also bring people with different disabilities together and create a team of them for the event."

Thanks to this public activity, many guests or participants are reached and recognize from the work of people with disabilities how well inclusion can work even in a "stressful" place such as a check-in or checkroom.