A new grant software presents free competition passes to many well-liked festivals for people today with disabilities. Here’s what you must know.
The Dan Grover Memorial Ticket Grant Program presents absolutely free accessibility to live shows, festivals, and conventions for folks with disabilities. Anyone who is impacted by a recently acquired, temporary, or lifelong incapacity is inspired to apply for free accessibility to their most loved activities. Any person with disabilities who is dealing with economical hardship is also inspired to utilize.
Available Festivals has partnered with many large-profile songs festivals, together with Electrical Daisy Carnival, Lollapalooza, Rolling Loud, Stagecoach, Over and above Wonderland, BottleRock Napa Valley, and numerous additional to offer you absolutely free festival passes.
Pitchfork experiences the program is spearheaded by Austin Whitney, Founder of Accessible Festivals. Whitney was remaining paralyzed from the waist down next a car incident in 2007. Whitney credits attending Coachella in 2007 with serving to him get as a result of adjusting to his new lifetime.
“Ultimately my business enterprise life is all about functioning to improve festivals for individuals with disabilities and operating promoters to cut down their liabilities and increase their firms for all points ADA,” Whitney instructed Billboard about the grant initiative. The method by itself is named soon after Dan Grover, an accessibility marketing consultant for the reside audio business. Grover aided lead ADA compliance operations for many events throughout a long time.
“One of his colleagues sent me an Excel sheet that he experienced, wherever he essentially took notes on each live performance he went to in his everyday living,” Whitney proceeds. “He definitely fell in love with it and became an advocate for accessibility within just the marketplace.”
Dan Grover was diagnosed with muscular dystrophy at an early age and began using a wheelchair at the age of 21. The very first display he attended was a Certainly concert in Philadelphia in 1979 – wherever he observed the venue’s deficiency of accessibility for men and women like him.
About the class of 40 yrs, Dan Grover attended a lot more than 400 concerts with accessibility notes for every single. Regrettably, Dan handed absent on July 27, 2022. The grant application is supposed to maintain Dan’s legacy alive and honor him by sharing his enthusiasm for audio and continuing to assist folks with disabilities see their preferred new music acts by providing totally free festival passes to them.