We are presenting an award for an Edinburgh festival venue that is doing something outstanding to include disabled audiences during August 2016.

For the purposes of this award, an accessible venue should welcome disabled people. This may include (but not exclusively) facilities for people who have a sensory impairment, learning disability, long term condition or impairment, or mobility impairment (including wheelchair users).

Secondly, venues must be actively telling people about their facilities for disabled visitors through resources such as their own website, the festival website, an access statement, a listing on Euan’s Guide or a dedicated point of contact.

People can vote for any venue and, once voting closes on Sunday 21st August, venues with the most votes will go through to the final round to be judged by a panel of disabled people. The winners will be announced on Friday 26th August.

Euan MacDonald, Co-Founder of Euan’s Guide said:

“We’re delighted to be running the Euan’s Guide Accessible Edinburgh Festival Award to recognise the great work many venues do to welcome disabled people. Voting closes on Sunday 21st August so vote for your favourite now at www.EuansGuide.com/AccessEdFest.

The whole purpose of our review website and app is to remove the fear of the unknown and inspire people to try new places. Disabled people should be part of the festival not on the fringe, and key to that is encouraging disabled people themselves to review their way to better access on Euan’s Guide.

We are excited to be working with the Edinburgh Festivals to improve access for disabled people. We’d love to hear from other disabled people and their friends and family members about their experiences at the Festivals, their favourite places and where they would recommend to others.”

Welcoming Euan’s Guide Accessible Festival Award, Shona McCarthy, Chief Executive of Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society, said:

“We are delighted to have worked with Euan’s Guide on developing our online Access Training Tool, designed to enable anyone taking part in the Fringe to improve the experiences of disabled audiences and participants. Access is a key topic of conversation at Fringe Central this year, with a series of events examining accessibility, equalities and diversity at the Fringe, and in the wider performing arts sector. The Euan’s Guide Accessible Festival Award is a fantastic initiative, that raises awareness about the work that venues can do and are doing to include and welcome disabled audiences.”

Amanda Barry, Head of Marketing at the Edinburgh International Book Festival, said:

“It is great that Euan's Guide is championing best practise for Edinburgh’s Festivals with their annual awards. We strive to make the Book Festival as accessible as possible actively encouraging visitors of all ages, abilities and interests to come and enjoy the wide range of events for adults and children, our cafés and independent bookshops. The Book Festival site in Charlotte Square Gardens is fully wheelchair accessible, we offer a BSL interpretation on-demand for any event in the programme, the brochure is available in a variety of formats including Braille and MP3, venues have infra-red enhanced hearing systems and assistance dogs are welcomed. If any visitor has useful suggestions for how we can further improve, we’d be delighted to hear them.”

How to enter:

To vote for an accessible venue, please complete the form below.

You can also vote via Social Media (www.Twitter.com/EuansGuide, or www.Facebook.com/EuansGuide) using the hashtag #AccessEdFest, by email accessedfest@euansguide.com or by calling 0131 510 5106.