event-accessibility-inclusion

---
name: event-accessibility-inclusion
description: Decide which accessibility and inclusion provisions a technical event commits to - the physical, sensory, dietary, economic and digital-access set, at what depth, sized for whom, funded from where - plus the public declaration of it and the data-handling posture for accommodation requests. Use whenever asked what accessibility a conference should offer, whether to caption talks, whether to run a quiet room, childcare or travel grants, how to write an accessibility page, or how to answer an accommodation request, even if the user never says "accessibility". Decides the bar, not delivery. Do NOT use for the code of conduct - use samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-code-of-conduct. Not legal advice; access duties vary by jurisdiction.
license: MIT
metadata:
  author: Samuel Berthe
  version: "1.0.0"
---

# Event Accessibility and Inclusion

You decide the functional provision set: whether an access provision is needed, how many, sized for what, published where, and who is accountable for it on the day. Siblings execute what you decide - `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-production` delivers captioning and hearing loops technically, `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-venue-sourcing` checks candidate venues against the criteria you write, `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-vendor-sourcing` puts your dietary commitment into the catering brief, and `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-attendee-experience` places and routes what you sized. You do not draft the code of conduct, price tickets, or run the CFP.

Three siblings meet at the badge-pickup table, so the split has to be said rather than assumed. A pronoun sticker or a quiet room reads three ways at once: `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-cultural-identity` owns what it _says_ about the event, `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-attendee-experience` owns where it sits and how someone reaches it, and you own whether it exists, how many, and sized for what.

The colour-coded interaction-consent stickers on the sourced template page route **here** despite sharing that table with pronoun stickers. They signal an interaction and recording boundary - an access provision and a photo opt-out, not an identity statement:

- **Green** - open to talk.
- **Yellow** - only if you know me.
- **Red** - not interested in talking, or in being photographed.

Enforcement lives with `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-code-of-conduct`: recording someone wearing red is "harassing photography or recording" under its prohibited-behavior list, routed through its incident pipeline. This skill sizes and distributes the sticker; it does not draft the consequence.

**This is not legal advice.** Several jurisdictions impose statutory duties on public events - accessible premises, auxiliary aids, and how disability data may be held.

Those duties differ by country, venue type, and event size. Say which questions need counsel rather than answering them; the compliance-cost axis below names the review each option triggers, never whether it is lawful.

Every ranking below is a default, not a law - it shifts with context and with who executes it. After the interview, re-rank **all four menus** against what you already know. Each of these overturns a default rung:

- A foundation or employer already funding an accessibility line.
- A venue already signed.
- An in-house signing volunteer.
- A legal entity that cannot hold a contract.
- An audience whose access needs are already documented from a previous edition.

## Interview

Ask one question at a time, multiple-choice where possible. Questions 7-9 exist because the menus diverge sharply on time-to-effect, durability and effort - the defaults cannot be picked for the user.

1. Who funds the provision line - a standing accessibility budget, or a community budget where every provision competes with catering? Bounds the whole depth ladder.
2. Is the venue already signed? If not, write the accessibility criteria first - a signed venue deletes half of menu 1 permanently.
3. What access needs are already known (last edition's requests, community reports, a speaker who declared one)? Provision against evidence held, before a template.
4. Does a legal entity exist able to sign a vendor contract, carry insurance, disburse money? Without one, childcare or a grant program can't run at all.
5. Is there a named person who owns accessibility from now until the debrief, not a role inbox?
6. Which jurisdiction, and has anyone checked what it requires of a public event and its disability data? Unanswered is a question for counsel.
7. When must the provision set be published? Attendees book travel months ahead - a hard date promotes fast-acting rungs on every menu.
8. One-off edition, or one year of a recurring event? Recurring promotes compounding rungs a one-off can never repay.
9. Effort ceiling: organizer hours, anyone to staff a request channel through to the event, budget committable before tickets sell? No one to answer requests deletes the request-channel rungs entirely.

## Who funds it

An attendee's access need is identical whether an employer or the attendee bought the ticket; no provision changes shape because of who paid.

The axis that does discriminate is **who funds the provision line**. A foundation- or vendor-run event carries a standing accessibility budget, provisioning per-room live captioning, complimentary childcare, and equipment rental as normal practice. A community event funds the same provisions out of the money that would otherwise buy lunch - this moves menu 1 (depth), menu 2 (captioning) and menu 4 (economic access).

It does **not** move menu 3. A two-person volunteer team and a foundation face the identical problem once an attendee discloses a disability: the same duty of care, the same retention question, the same person who now has to answer. Say so rather than letting the funding pole read as an excuse that reaches every menu.

## The depth range you are choosing inside

Published practice ranges from one venue-checklist line to a full templated page with per-room captioning, childcare and travel grants. See [references/provision-catalog.md](references/provision-catalog.md) for the sourced range, depth by depth. Treat the fullest examples as promotable targets, never as a bar every organizer already clears.

## Menu 1 - Provision depth

Ranking (default, not a law - re-rank against Q1, Q2, Q9):

- effort (hours, venue coordination, procurement, standing staffing, reversibility): `funded-access set > on-site provision set > published page and request channel > venue-floor facts`
- value (people who can attend and participate who otherwise could not): `funded-access set > on-site provision set > published page and request channel > venue-floor facts`
- compliance cost (the review triggered, and what stops being reversible): `funded-access set > published page and request channel == on-site provision set > venue-floor facts`
- efficiency: `published page and request channel > venue-floor facts > on-site provision set > funded-access set`

Value and effort share one order: the rung that converts more non-attendance into attendance always costs more hours, coordination and standing ownership - a dominance relation needs value ≥ and every cost ≤, so no rung dominates another here, and the compliance axis rescues nothing.

The two middle rungs tie on compliance cost because exposure arrives the moment the event holds any disability disclosure, not with how many provisions it feeds - a channel receives disclosures in writing, a provision set receives them at the desk (asking where the nursing room is _is_ a disclosure), and both trigger the same data-handling and retention review, neither reversible. Funded-access sits above both because minors, insurance and money transfers each add their own review. Venue-floor facts sit alone at the floor: the only rung that publishes a building property and collects nothing.

- **Published page and request channel** (efficiency default) - one page naming every provision, the venue's real access facts, a named human to write to. An afternoon plus an inbox.
- **Venue-floor facts** - promote only when Q9 leaves no one to answer a channel: state what the building does, publish a step-free route, promise nothing that needs staffing.
- **On-site provision set** - quiet space, reserved seating, all-gender restrooms, nursing room, interaction-consent stickers. Real coordination and day-of ownership. Promote when Q3 surfaced a need this set answers.
- **Funded-access set** (starved rung) - tops value and effort (each piece is a contract, a budget line, a standing job). Promote when Q1 named a foundation/sponsor budget. **Delete outright**, not rank, when Q4 found no legal entity.

Deleted rather than ranked: an accessibility page describing provisions not yet secured. It would win the efficiency line outright - and converts into a broken promise for whoever travelled on it.

## Menu 2 - Captioning and interpretation

Ranking (default, not a law - re-rank against Q1, Q3, Q8):

- effort: `standing subtitle pipeline > live captioning in every room > live captioning main-days-only > post-event corrected captions > on-request live provision`
- value (who can follow the programme): `live captioning in every room > live captioning main-days-only > on-request live provision > standing subtitle pipeline > post-event corrected captions`
- compliance cost: `on-request live provision > standing subtitle pipeline == post-event corrected captions > live captioning in every room == live captioning main-days-only`
- efficiency: `on-request live provision > live captioning main-days-only > post-event corrected captions > live captioning in every room > standing subtitle pipeline`

On-request tops compliance cost alone: the only rung that requires holding a named individual's disability disclosure and acting on it, where refusing after receiving one is the exposure. The two post-hoc rungs tie because both publish a derived text record and both raise one question - does the speaker's recording release cover a transcript and its translations - answered once, reversible by unpublishing a file. The two live rungs tie because the review is a vendor's retention terms plus the speaker's consent to a live transcript; fewer rooms changes how much is captioned, not which clause gets read.

Sourced examples for each rung are in [references/provision-catalog.md](references/provision-catalog.md) § Captioning, interpretation and subtitles.

- **On-request live provision** (efficiency default) - publish that interpretation/live captioning is available on request with a stated lead time, book it when asked. Its failure mode: only fires if someone discloses, and most don't.
- **Live captioning, main days/room only** - promote when Q3 shows the need is real and recurring. State which parts are covered - an unstated scope is what a deaf attendee discovers in the room.
- **Post-event corrected captions** - the cheap floor: correct an automated pass over published recordings. Helps nobody in the room; never an answer to a live need.
- **Live captioning in every room** (starved rung) - tops value and effort. Promote when Q1 named an existing budget line, or on-request has fired more than once.
- **Standing subtitle pipeline** (starved rung) - crowdsourced volunteer subtitling after the event. Buys multi-language reach, compounds across editions, never ends. Promote when Q8 says recurring and a volunteer community already exists.

Deleted rather than ranked: **treating production capability as a captioning provision.** A capable broadcast operation is not a captioning provision until someone states it, budgets it, and publishes what it covers.

Whichever rung wins, hand delivery to `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-production` to own the signal path and the budget line.

## Menu 3 - Accommodation requests and the data you now hold

First, shrink what needs a request at all. A quiet space, all-gender restrooms, reserved seating and interaction-consent stickers work walk-up, and the people who most need them are the least likely to disclose.

Only provisions that must be booked - interpretation, childcare, a nursing room, an equipment rental, a grant - need a channel. This move is free and outranks everything below it.

Ranking for what remains (default, not a law - re-rank against Q5, Q6, Q9):

- effort: `structured form with a stated posture > registration-flow field > named inbox with named people`
- value (needs that actually reach you): `structured form with a stated posture > registration-flow field > named inbox with named people`
- compliance cost: `registration-flow field > structured form with a stated posture > named inbox with named people`
- efficiency: `registration-flow field > named inbox with named people > structured form with a stated posture`

Value and effort run in one order, so no pair strictly dominates: the instrument that surfaces more needs costs strictly more triage. The field outranks the inbox on effort even at ten minutes to add, because effort here means the months of triage it generates, not the setup - asking in the flow multiplies who discloses, which is exactly what makes it valuable and exactly what makes it work.

The compliance axis disagrees with the other two, which is the point of splitting them: the rung that wins on efficiency also tops compliance cost. A registration-flow field deposits health and disability data into a third-party ticketing platform's records by default, where retention is the platform's choice, not yours. The structured form triggers a heavier review upfront - a retention rule, a named owner, a published turnaround - and that review is what makes the data deletable again.

- **Registration-flow field** (efficiency default) - one question in the flow, routed to a named owner. Surfaces needs a passive inbox never hears. Add a retention rule stated on the form, and delete at the debrief.
- **Named inbox with named people** - a dedicated address answered by named individuals, not a role alias. Promote over the field when Q6 leaves the jurisdiction's data rules unanswered.
- **Structured form with a stated posture** (starved rung) - tops value (people disclose when they see what happens to it) and effort (posture, owner, turnaround all written and honoured). Promote when requests already arrive in volume, an institutional partner requires it, or Q6 found a statutory duty - route that to counsel first.

If Q9 left nobody to answer requests through to the event, delete all three and design every provision to work walk-up instead.

Deleted rather than ranked at any staffing level: **routing requests to the general registration desk with no accessibility owner.** It is not the cheap rung, it is the unowned one: the request is received, nobody is accountable, and the attendee learns this on the day.

See [references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md](references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md) for the request-channel copy and the five-point data-handling posture to decide before the channel opens.

## Menu 4 - Economic access

Ticket price itself is not yours: the need-gated scholarship rung belongs to `samber/dev-event-organizer-skills@event-ticket-pricing`, which owns its application mechanic and reviewer. This menu is what access costs _beyond_ the ticket.

Ranking (default, not a law - re-rank against Q1, Q3, Q4):

- effort (organizer hours, vendor coordination, payment/eligibility handling, reversibility): `travel and registration grant > subsidized childcare > complimentary childcare > the ticket-side need-gated rung`
- value: `travel and registration grant > complimentary childcare > the ticket-side need-gated rung > subsidized childcare`
- compliance cost: `complimentary childcare == subsidized childcare > travel and registration grant > the ticket-side need-gated rung`
- efficiency: `the ticket-side need-gated rung > complimentary childcare > subsidized childcare > travel and registration grant`

The two childcare rungs tie on compliance cost only: both place minors in the event's care (vendor vetting, staffing ratios, insurance, background checks), the heaviest and least reversible review on this menu since an incident can't be undone. The grant's review is financial - identity confirmation, receipts, disbursement, possible tax reporting - heavy but reversible edition to edition.

They do not tie on effort. A subsidized fee looks cheaper and is not: see [references/economic-access-and-childcare.md](references/economic-access-and-childcare.md) for the sourced cost ratio and the vendor due-diligence checklist. Small budget relief, real administrative load - that is why subsidized loses to complimentary on three axes and is still the right answer when the budget line, not organizer hours, is what binds.

- **The ticket-side need-gated rung** (efficiency default) - point at the sibling, ask the interview question, spend nothing here. Broadest reach, smallest cost removed.
- **Complimentary childcare** - onsite, free, RSVP required. Unblocks an otherwise fully excluded population. Promote when Q3 shows a caregiving population in the audience.
- **Subsidized childcare** - the same provision behind a published flat fee against real per-child-day cost. Last on value - any fee filters out the families the program was for. Promote when the budget can't absorb the full cost.
- **Travel and registration grant** (starved rung) - tops value (travel is the largest excluded cost outside the host city) and effort (an application cycle, review panel, disbursement). Name its access limit: receipts-only disbursement excludes anyone who can't front the cost. **Delete outright**, not rank, when Q4 found no entity able to disburse money.

Deleted rather than ranked: an unpublished "email us and we'll see" hardship promise with no budget behind it.

## The digital layer

Web accessibility is a separate discipline and transfers here only to the event's own digital surface - the website, registration and CFP forms, the schedule, the livestream player, and published program materials. It says nothing about physical or sensory provisions on site, and must never be presented as covering them.

Target WCAG 2.2 level AA on those surfaces, structured by the four POUR categories, with captions on published media and contrast minimums met on the schedule and forms. The checklist and the audit workflow are in [references/digital-layer-checklist.md](references/digital-layer-checklist.md). A perfect automated score is not conformance; keyboard-exercise the registration flow before claiming anything.

## Workflow

1. **Run the interview.** Fix the funding pole, venue status, known needs, entity, owner, effort ceiling.
2. **Decide the provision set** from menus 1, 2, and 4, plus the dietary commitment - before the venue is signed.
3. **Write the accessibility criteria sheet** and hand it to `event-venue-sourcing` as a sourcing input; it checks candidates against your sheet.
4. **Declare the set publicly on one page**, provision by provision, with what is covered and what isn't: [references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md](references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md).
5. **Open the request channel** chosen in Menu 3, with owner, lead time, and retention rule stated on the form. Answer every request, including declines.
6. **Route delivery**: captioning to `event-production`; dietary commitments to `event-vendor-sourcing`; a speaker's declared need to `event-speaker-experience`; placement and wayfinding to `event-attendee-experience`.
7. **Staff it and say it on the day**: name who owns each provision, and open with what exists and where.
8. **Review after the event**: requested, delivered, declined and why. Delete the request data on the schedule published.

If your harness has persistent memory, record the provision set as published, every request and how it was answered, the venue's real access facts, and which provisions went unused. Next edition provisions against that record instead of a template.

## Stated gaps

Say these out loud rather than inventing an answer:

- **Dietary and childcare practice** each now draw on two independent organizations rather than one, and the catalog states the range where the two sources diverge - see [references/provision-catalog.md](references/provision-catalog.md) and [references/economic-access-and-childcare.md](references/economic-access-and-childcare.md).
- **Quiet-space sizing** has no established seat-to-attendee ratio or square-footage rule anywhere sourced. One unconference series reports an operational observation - roughly 5% of attendees in the quiet room at any one time - but states it as its own experience, not a codified standard; treat any stricter-sounding figure seen elsewhere as a vendor estimate. Decide sizing against the room you have and say it was self-set.
- **The trigger threshold for interpretation** is self-set: nothing fixes the attendance or evidence level at which on-request provision stops being enough, so state the level you chose and why.
- **Jurisdictional duties** are out of scope by construction. Route Q6 to counsel.

## Failure modes

- **Announcing a provision nobody is staffed to run.** A quiet room that is locked, a nursing room whose location nobody at the desk knows, a captioning line with no operator. Name the owner in step 7 before the provision reaches the page.
- **Collecting disability disclosures with no handling posture.** The request channel opens, disclosures arrive, and nobody has decided where they live, who reads them, or when they are deleted. Decide it before the channel opens, not after the first request.
- **Treating the templated full page as a floor at community budget.** It is the top of a range most published events do not reach. Copying it produces a page of promises the budget cannot fund.
- **Captioning part of the programme without saying which part.** Sourced practice scopes captioning to the highest-attendance days; the failure is not the scope, it is discovering the scope in the room.
- **Deciding accessibility after the venue is signed.** Almost every physical provision is a property of the building. Once the contract is signed, the menu has already been chosen for you.
- **Reading production capability as coverage.** A capable A/V team is not a captioning provision until someone states, budgets and publishes it.
- **Letting a request channel substitute for walk-up design.** Every provision that requires disclosure filters out the people least willing to disclose. Shrink the set that needs asking first.
- **Publishing a grant program without its access limit.** A reimbursement-only grant excludes anyone who cannot front the cost. Say so on the page rather than letting the applicant discover it.

## Measurement

Everything below is self-set - pick two or three and write down before the event what each would change:

- **Requests received against requests met** (self-set): the ratio, and the reason for every unmet one. A channel with zero requests is not evidence of zero need; it is usually evidence the page was published too late or the channel was not trusted.
- **Provisions used against provisions funded** (self-set): a quiet space nobody entered and a childcare booking nobody took are different findings from an over-subscribed one, and both belong in the debrief.
- **Lead time from page publication to the travel-booking window** (self-set): a page published after attendees have booked reached nobody it was for.
- **Requests carried forward** (self-set): needs that recur edition to edition should become walk-up provisions rather than repeat requests.

## Invocation examples

- "We're running a 400-person community conference in a university building - what accessibility should we actually commit to, and what should we not promise?"
- "Should we caption our talks? We have a good video team and no captioning budget."
- "Someone asked for a sign-language interpreter three weeks out. What do we do, and what should we have published?"
- "Write our accessibility page. We have a quiet room, step-free access and no childcare."

Expected output: a provision set and the request channel, presented section by section for validation, every item labelled sourced or self-set.

- **Provision set** - each provision with its depth rung, who owns it, what it costs in effort, which sibling delivers it, and what the page will say about it.
- **Request channel** - its posture.

## References

- [references/provision-catalog.md](references/provision-catalog.md) - every sourced provision with its origin and date: the templated full page item by item, the historical 2019 page, FOSDEM's thin page including its stated absences, and the dietary categories with their fallback paths.
- [references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md](references/accessibility-page-and-request-flow.md) - how to structure the page, how to word a provision and its scope honestly, the request-channel copy, the data-handling posture, and what to announce on the day.
- [references/economic-access-and-childcare.md](references/economic-access-and-childcare.md) - the childcare vendor due-diligence checklist with its sourced staffing ratios and vetting standards, the subsidy ratio, and the grant program's mechanics including its access limit.
- [references/digital-layer-checklist.md](references/digital-layer-checklist.md) - the WCAG 2.2 AA checklist for the event's own website, forms, schedule and livestream, labelled digital-layer-only throughout.

Sibling skills referenced throughout: `event-venue-sourcing`, `event-production`, `event-vendor-sourcing`, `event-attendee-experience`, `event-speaker-experience`, `event-code-of-conduct`.