Josh, a young adult with cerebral palsy, shares his experience of attending Ability Festival 2024.

On Saturday 19 October I attended Ability Festival 2024 at Birrarung Marr. Founded by Dylan Alcott in 2022, Ability Festival is Australia’s first fully accessible music festival with extensive accessibility features. All profits go to The Dylan Alcott Foundation to support its mission of making the world a better place for people with a disability.

Watch Dylan take a tour of the accessibility features in this year’s event

Auslan is often overlooked in other festivals or reserved for one-off specific shows. Each stage (yes, even the DJ stage) at Ability Fest had its own roster of Auslan interpreters with each set being signed in the corner of the stage. This was also shown on the main screens with one-quarter of the screens devoted to showing the interpreter. At the top of these screens, there were also captions displayed following along with the song lyrics and whatever the artist said on stage.

There was a line or so delay with these captions as someone was side-stage typing them, but they were accurate as it wasn’t just your AI-generated subtitles that often make mistakes. While this shouldn’t really be a highlight as it should be the norm, it was nice to see. There was even ASL and sign language for festival highlights King Stingray when they sang in language which was just amazing to see.

Another cool feature of this festival is the silent disco. This is anything but your standard silent disco with live feeds from the stages as well as haptic vests, which vibrate on the wearer’s chest enabling them to feel the beat of the music. While I didn’t go to this silent disco, I have heard good things about it from friends who did.

Watch the making of an accessible festival: Part One. 

As Dylan talks about in the above video, the biggest challenges were not accessibility challenges. That was the easy part, According to Dylan; if accessibility is at the forefront in the planning process and built into the event from the start, then it truly is that easy. This is also what he spoke about on stage on the day and encouraged more festivals to factor in accessibility as it is that easy and it gives people with a disability a chance to party with their mates and lets us all experience live music together.

This blog post has been provided by Cerebral Palsy Support Network in collaboration with My CP Guide. For more information about travel and holidaying as a person with cerebral palsy, My CP Guide hosts a variety of information resources. Browse the Leisure & Recreation category on My CP Guide to find other relevant resources.