How to Actually Build Accessible Events Beyond Compliance

[00:00:00] Stephen Cutchins: Chicago-based nonprofit called Open Doors Organization, it tracked people with disabilities over two years. There were like 77 million trips taken by people with disabilities. They spent $50 billion doing so. If they're going to spend $50 billion traveling, they'll gladly spend that money and go to your conference, but they're not. They're not going to it. They're taking their money and going elsewhere. So we need to change that. 

[00:00:26] Alyssa Peltier: Great events create great brands, but pulling off an event that engages, excites, and connects audiences? Well, that takes a village. And we're that village. My name is Alyssa.

[00:00:38] Rachel Andrews: I'm Rachel.

[00:00:39] Camille Arnold: I'm Camille.

[00:00:40] Felicia Asiedu: And I'm Felicia.

[00:00:42] Alyssa Peltier: And you are listening to Great Events, the podcast for all event enthusiasts, creators, and innovators in the world of events and marketing.

[00:00:50] Felicia Asiedu: 1.3 billion people, roughly 16% of the global population, live with a disability. That's your attendees, your speakers, your sponsors, your team. Whether your event is in London, Lagos, Singapore, or São Paulo, that number shows up in your room.

If you've listened to Great Events for a while, you've heard us talk about accessibility before, and we're talking about it again on purpose, because somewhere between the last conversation and this one, accessibility stopped being a trend. Let's be honest.

In our 2026 Trends book, we named it outright: accessibility has graduated from trend of the year to a permanent staple of how we do events, or how we should do events, and how we do business, or should do business, and how we do life, or should do life, right?

It's not the shiny new thing anymore. It's the floor. And yet, most event professionals don't have disabilities themselves, which means a lot of the barriers baked into our events are invisible to the people running them. And that gap doesn't close on its own. It closes when we keep talking about it, keep getting more specific, and keep turning awareness into action. So that's what today is. Not a reintroduction to the topic, but a practical deepening of it.

And the good news, you do not need a massive budget or a specialist team to make your events more accessible. You need a checklist with the right questions and someone who's been doing this work for say, I don't know, 20 years to walk you through it.

I'm Felicia Asiedu and welcome back to Great Events. Today, we are getting tactical about event accessibility, exactly what to do at every phase of your event to make it work for more people before, during, and after. No theory, just actions you can start taking right now. And I'm thrilled to say, Stephen Cutchins is back with us.

Stephen is the Director of Accessibility at Cvent with 20 years, guess that, or more — of experience in digital accessibility and a personal connection to this work that goes well beyond the job title. Stephen, welcome back, my friend. I'm so happy to have you.

[00:02:54] Stephen Cutchins: Hey, thank you very much. Appreciate it. Always a pleasure. This is three years in a row. Let's go for four already. I'm ready to schedule it for next year.

[00:03:01] Felicia Asiedu: Let's do it. I know that sometimes when people see accessibility, they're like, "Oh," roll the eyes, "We've done this before." But no, we haven't. There's a difference, I think, between knowing about it and building your events for it. It's like two completely different things, wouldn't you say?

[00:03:15] Stephen Cutchins: It's not a trend. It's now people, they get it. We've tried to push this so many ways to convince planners you really have to do this. It's the human aspect. It's the right thing to do. Now, we've gone beyond where we know that the return on investment is there.

So even for the people who are like, "I don't really have any attendees with disabilities." And again, like you mentioned, a lot of planners don't think about this because they don't have a background. They'd ever worked with or had family members, or themselves had a disability. They just don't think about it, and they think, "I don't see attendees in wheelchairs. I don't see attendees who are blind." So who cares? Now they understand that they're not there because they don't trust you, and you're not making money off of them.

There's a tremendous amount of money, and people with disabilities are very willing to spend it and travel a lot. And these planners just don't know that yet. There's a tremendous ROI on event accessibility. And I've never met a planner yet who says, "Hey, we make enough money. We have enough attendees. They don't want any more." That's never the case.

[00:04:11] Felicia Asiedu: Yeah. And do you think that's changed? If you think about, because I know we've done some talks before. Obviously, you've come to Connect Europe, you talk at Connect all the time. And I know that you've often tried to put that forward, that the business cases has sharpened, but also the legal landscape has shifted. So when you're sitting down with planners today and having those conversations, are they genuinely different conversations, or are we still having the same conversations, but in new clothes or something?

[00:04:39] Stephen Cutchins: Planners now completely get it that it's the right thing to do from a human aspect. It's the right thing to do for return on investment, and legal has just made it even easier.

So, European Accessibility Act was huge. I get all the time people contacting me from within European Union like, "Okay, what do I need to do?" It's not, "I think I need to do this or I might need to do this or convince me why." It's, "I have to do it. How do I do it?"

In the US, a big one is, and it's a big swath of people that do a tremendous number of events is ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act Title II, which covers state and local government, is being updated here. So they don't do a lot of events. They do some, but they spend a lot of state and local funds on higher education, public K-12, nonprofit organizations that do work for members of the public. Those are impacted also by ADA Title II.

So people think, "Oh, state and local government, not a lot of conferences." Higher Ed, so many conferences. Higher Ed is my best friend right now. And some of these clients I've been working with for years and years here, they're already on board. So they're like, "We're glad we did it." Some of them are like, "Oh, what do I do? Where do I start?" They're all great conversations, but it really has progressed from, "I think there's a human aspect to this to now, I know I can make more money, and legally I have to do it anyway, so I might as well do it because I'm going to get more butts in the seats at my events."

[00:05:58] Felicia Asiedu: I know exactly what you mean because I feel like when legislation rolls out, it might feel a little bit harsh, but actually setting out those steps of, "This is what you're supposed to do, this is what you're not supposed to do." In some ways, it's kind of like a checklist in itself. It's like, "Ah, now I have a goal to kind of work towards." So I guess for some people, their why has changed because they've been told, "This is it, and this is exactly what you have to do." Right?

[00:06:25] Stephen Cutchins: Right. And I used to not like the legal argument. That was kind of the last one. I want everybody to do this for the human aspect because I want them to be able to support people because it's the right thing to do. I don't like the legal argument, but I wouldn't say it. Now, we knew this was coming. Now, it's here. So I'm not telling them you have to do this. They're coming to me and go, "I have to do this. What do we do?"

It's nice to be reached out too to say, "Hey, we have to do this." We do things like ... We've talked about this before, VPATs, it's a voluntary product accessibility template. It's like a statement of how we comply to these web content accessibility guidelines with our software products.

I have clients coming to me now, knowing what a VPAT is, asking one, "Hey, where's a VPAT for registration? Where's it for attendee hub?" That's a little bit different than we used to see. We used to go, "Oh, you want to buy our products? You should be accessible here. Here's how we can..." You know, we're audited, and we have this thing. And they're like, "Okay, cool. What is it?" They're asking for it actively, and it has changed a lot here in European Union, also now in the US with our Higher Ed nonprofit clients.

[00:07:21] Felicia Asiedu: I love that so much. And I know exactly what you mean. You don't want someone to do something just because there's a legality, right? But we're just about to head into the what should people do. And what I really love about what you just said is that let's say there's a lowly event planner working away who's trying to ring the bell internally that this is super important. I think that's a tall order to place on them. And I think that's just harsh for us to ask for them to do it. So that legal argument is helping actually the teams of 1, of 10, of 20, whoever they are, to just say, "Look, we have to. So now, give me whatever I need because I need to go and do this."

[00:07:59] Stephen Cutchins: And when they talk about fines, I think it was the Netherlands for European Accessibility Act, up to 10% of your yearly profit or turnover, 10%. If you're a million-dollar business, you have to give $100,000 up for a fine. That's substantial. In the US, with ADA, the first fine is $75,000. The second is $150,000. That is pretty terrifying.

So imagine if you have a whole bunch of students going to university, I'm going to make up 10 of them have issues. If you get hit 10 different times, that's pretty staggering amount of money. You can make your websites way accessible, and make your events accessible for way less than the fines that you could possibly get. And again, to go back to my whole point, it's the right thing to do. Anyway, you're supporting your students, you're supporting your constituents, I think is the term they use.

[00:08:48] Felicia Asiedu: Yeah, absolutely. So let's get into it. Let's start with vendor and venue sourcing. So venue, I know is a tricky one for some people, and for a lot of people, they put a lot of the onus onto the venue, but I think from a planner perspective, our minds need to be thinking about it as well. So when you think about that checklist, what is on it now that wasn't necessarily on it five years ago, but 100% needs to be on that checklist when someone is looking at a venue?

[00:09:14] Stephen Cutchins: When you ask questions and registration, ask detailed questions, find out the accommodations that somebody needs. We're going through this right now with Cvent Connect in the US coming up here in a few months. There's a person who's in a wheelchair, and he identified during the registration process, and he didn't just say, "I need accommodations in the US ADA, Americans with Disabilities Act." Some hotels, they think our phone has a lighted ringer. That's all they need. That's not going to help a person in a wheelchair. He asked for dimensions and pictures of the room because he's in a wheelchair. He wants to be able to make sure he can actually get in there and turn around.

So as a planner, don't just say, "Oh, you need an accessible room, or you're going to need accommodations. We'll give you the ADA room." And the guy gets in there, and he literally can't even turn around in his own room in his wheelchair. So, find what their accommodations, the ones they need, just go on Google or go on ChatGPT or whatever and say, "What are the minimum sizes for a hotel room in a wheelchair?" And I think it's say 36 inches or 42 inches. Go in there, and you don't even need a tape measure. You can walk in and if it's this big, that's not going to fit. And it takes virtually no time at all. You're going to be onsite trying to pick the places out anyway, so it's no time added to walk in.

Now, if you want to do it better, I love it. Literally, walk in there with a tape measure. If it says it has to be 36 inches, and if it's 34, seems minor, but if his wheelchair's 35 and a half, he's not going to get in the room. He'll be able to get in, he won't be able to get out or have to back out. All of the things are out there, dimensions are out there. Ask them what they need and then check it. It wouldn't take much time and it's going to cost virtually zero money to do. There's no real overhead. Just go and check the rooms.

And hopefully the next time, you know that venue and that hotel should be happy to do it, the next time you're going to get more people in wheelchairs, more people with disabilities, more people who might need that lighted ringer on their phone, and then more people and then more people. The money that these people, that people with disabilities, that we have to spend is staggering. They're spending it on travel. They're just not spending it at your event. We need to change that.

[00:11:13] Felicia Asiedu: Yeah, agreed. You know what you just spoke about there? Obviously, I plan events all the time as part of my role at Cvent and as a marketer, but I love that you're giving us that kind of next level of what to think about. Let me give you another one, and then hopefully you can give me your next level and then we'll move on.

But so at church, our church is our venue and we rent that out. So we are just now fitting automatic doors, because otherwise someone has to come and open the door for someone and hold it and then, oh no, we need to open the double doors because actually the single door wasn't in us. So we're just like, "Forget it. Let's just pay the money. We got some funding and we've been getting some automatic doors."

But again, I don't know if that is a standard. So, is that a standard, or is that a next-level thing where you're kind of like, "If it doesn't have automatic doors, forget it, let's just go somewhere else?" What do you think?

[00:11:59] Stephen Cutchins: So I talked to you guys enough. I should know UK, London, but I don't, but in US it is. Yeah. Because if you have to think about somebody who has a physical disability, can't open a heavy door. What if somebody who's in a wheelchair and I have a friend, what if somebody who's, I'll say quadriplegic, not quite, but you get the idea, has to use a mouthstick. Doesn't have enough control over his arms to type into a laptop, for example. He definitely can't hold open a door. So you have to have a door that he or someone else can hit, and it can open up automatically.

So like the hotels, we love them, the big rotating, I'm using my hands here, the big rotating door, they don't work for wheelchairs. I've seen some that are giant. They look like our football stadium in Las Vegas, but not quite those. But you need a door that I can get in if I have limited mobility or limited strength or, I mean, just think I'm carrying something. You're checking into a hotel, and you're dragging a bunch of bags and all that, you need to have a way for it to open. So, at least here in the US, it would've been under ADA, you would've had to have that.

[00:12:57] Felicia Asiedu: Wow. Even I'm thinking about wheelchair access, but I guess even people that have visual impairments, you really do have to think that rotating thing, I'm not entirely sure is the right way to go because-

[00:13:06] Stephen Cutchins: It would be terrifying. One of the things we actually wanted to do at Connect, we're hoping to have a scavenger hunt, but we want to do it with multiple senses. So we might have like two people go, one with a sighted person and then one person wearing a mask and they have to find certain things like braille displays and interpret a braille display and we'll put them throughout Connect, which I think is a cool idea.

Try that once, just close your eyes, and you'll never make it. Close your eyes once and try to get into the lobby in a hotel. And I'm not picking on hotels, do it for a restaurant. Do it in your own home. I mean, heck, I'd be terrified walking up the stairs in my townhouse if I couldn't see. It's pretty terrifying. And the sound you hear, and the smells, your senses are overwhelmed when you can't see.

I used to call it "No Mouse Monday," but just spend a Monday, or even like a lunch hour on Monday, because I know the whole day is hard, but don't use your mouse for a day. This is just your regular old doing work, doing personal things. I'm going to go pay a bill online, try it once without a mouse. And you're going to get so frustrated, you're going to grab your mouse, but try it once. And that's just with your laptop, using the tab key and picking buttons and everything, it's pretty hard. And now, we'll try, I don't know, we'll call it a "No Sight Saturday." Try and see how far you can go just walking down the street blindfolded.

[00:14:22] Felicia Asiedu: This is literally walk a mile in my shoes kind of thing and see what it's like on the other side. And I think it would make us better planners, and we'd think a little bit more. Let's move into that no mouse world of website, event marketing, thinking about speakers, all the stuff still before the event, conversations you need to have with your teams about what we need. So I think let's start with the event website. I know there's the WCAG, or if you're calling it like WCAG or something.

[00:14:49] Stephen Cutchins: I say WCAG. Some people say WCAG or WCAG, but yeah, my way is I won't say it's right, but that's just I've done it for decades.

[00:14:57] Felicia Asiedu: Yeah. What are those accommodations that people need to think about on the event website?

[00:15:02] Stephen Cutchins: So WCAG, it's insanely confusing if you read it, but regardless of the technology you're using, so if you use a mouse, if you use a keyboard, if you use voice input, if you have to use a mouthstick and it's on a tablet, it's on a PC, it's on your phone, you can access it regardless of senses.

If my eyes don't work, I can't use a mouse. I can't drag it around the desktop and see where it's going, so I would have to have an alternative, which would be the keyboard. I can tab it. If I can't hear, and your laptop is going to play a video and it has sound on it, I can't hear that, so you do provide something an alternate way, which would be like captions or a transcript or both.

If I can't use a keyboard or a mouse, If you don't have use of my hands, I can use what's called a mouthstick. It's a kind of a pencil, a stick, I bite it and I can pick one key at a time, which means you can't do like crazy keyboard combinations. To register, do SHIFT+CTRL+ALT, whatever, you can't do that. It has to be kind of one key at a time.

The guidelines, I'll specify this, the biggest thing is though, make sure it works regardless of my physical abilities. If I have any limitations, I can't see your site. I have to be able to use it with a screen reader or with a braille display.

And as a planner, there's some things you can do. Images have alt text. You have to do good color contrast, proper heading structure, right? The software should allow that. Some of this stuff is just the software that you pick. Screen readers like that Stephen Hawking voice, it's kind of a robotic. It reads out what's on the screen since I can't see it. It just natively has to work. So pick your software wisely.

And actually, and you mentioned, you said like when you're talking with vendors, talk to your vendors about this beforehand. So even things like food, allergies, you know, do you have celiac disease? It's a disease, it is a disability. So make sure you ask those questions, and planners are getting really good about it. The vendors are getting really good about it, but ask them.

If you're going to have an onsite, which let's say somebody when they registered said, "Hey, I have a hearing disability or I'm deaf. I'm going to need a sign language interpreter. I'm going to need captions." Planner is like, "That's great. We are going to have an actual sign language interpreter on stage." You find out, okay, they'll speak English. We're going to get that.

But you don't let your vendor, your TV crew know, so where's the camera? If it's going to be a webinar, if they're going to broadcast or do hybrid, they're showing the speakers all the time. They don't show the sign language interpreter, so nobody actually gets to see the sign language interpreters. So get all this stuff in advance, make sure your vendors know, get it in writing. Worst case, if you don't, they're going to go, "Oh, well, that's an extra 20%." And then you blow through more budget.

[00:17:29] Felicia Asiedu: Absolutely, I love that last bit. Get it in writing, in the RFPs, in the briefs, put it in. "These are my requirements." And you want great content at the event, but before you were on site, how should you be briefing them, or what do you require from speakers? Is there a requirement from speakers to make your event a little bit more compliant or more accessible?

[00:17:49] Stephen Cutchins: So anything they're showing, and I would say anything that they're saying, at least what they're showing, needs to meet those WCAG web content accessibility guidelines. So, text to background has to be 4.5 to 1. You can Google WCAG and read it. If it's really big, it would be 3 to 1.

So if I like hot pink, and I have a hot pink background, and I put a slightly darker pink text, it might have super low contrast. It looks great, but it has such low contrast that somebody who has low vision or limited vision or is colorblind wouldn't be able to see it. So your PowerPoints, your presentations that you show up do need to meet those guidelines. But also, let your speakers know that somebody goes and is blind. I can hear everything you're saying, but I can't see what you're presenting.

So, there's a lot of words on this. I'll pause for 60 seconds and let you read it and I turn around and I wait. And then 60 seconds later, everybody's like, "Oh, okay." The person who was unable to see that or just they might not be able to read, if it's in English, English is a second language, they weren't able to process it the way I could if I could see it and I could read it, they wouldn't get that information. So it's fine to say, "I'll let you guys read it, and I'll read it out also."

For videos, this happens a whole lot. You show a cool, splashy video with little words here. And last year we made $20 million, and this time this, and this is all these things. And then there's music in the background, and that's it. Everybody's reading along and enjoying this, and the person who can't see it, they hear music for your little three-minute video. They have no idea what's going on.

So, either have a couple different ways to do it, send it out in advance, have somebody describe it, do it in captions, or in a transcript. Some ways, if somebody goes, "Okay, I don't hear anything." I can play the transcripts through my screen reader and hear what it's saying on screen. There's a bunch of different ways to do it, but it doesn't have to be you repeating it because you don't want to ... You know, if there's all these words popping up, you don't want to have somebody saying the words that are coming up, but at least somebody who can't see it has a way to read it. It might be through a screen reader on their phone, but at least they can understand that content.

[00:19:46] Felicia Asiedu: I think of all the things you've ever said to me, that one challenges me probably the most. I love presenting. I tell you, I love presenting, and I'm just thinking about a deck that I just did. It's very visual, you know, getting people to think. There is a lot of conversation in there. So the conversation's great. I often put visual cues on a screen to spark a conversation, to get people to feel an emotion of some kind, and then I want them to live in that emotion for a bit, and then we'll talk about it.

But actually, you just made me think there might be people sat in that audience that are like, "Mm-mm. I don't know what you're trying to get me to feel because I couldn't even see what you were trying to show me or make me linger on."

And then the second thing to that, Stephen, is that I'll often say to people that are asking me, "How do you present well? What do you do?" I'll often say to them, "Don't read the slide out. It's one of the worst things you could possibly do. Bits and pieces will do." And then now I'm thinking, "Well, you still don't want to read the slide out, but you do need to just be aware that there are some people that you just need to accommodate slightly differently."

[00:20:45] Stephen Cutchins: Normally, you can tell if somebody's blind, you can normally tell. You can see they might have the glasses on, they'll have a cane, they have a service animal, you'll know. And then you can say, "Okay, we're going to read this slide because there's the guy right in the front seat. I see him, or I see her." You know that, and you can read it out.

But if you don't, especially with a big event, let's say if you don't know at all, it might be worth saying, "Okay, on some of these slides, it's going to be text." Let's say if you have a mobile app. In the mobile app, there will be a transcript that you can read with the screen readers. It's already built to do your phone anyway. They already know how to use these. But maybe the next time is I'm going to ask in advance that there will be some visual presentations, may anyone have difficulty seeing that, you could send it out in advance. You could send your speaker notes, they can put it in a Word doc, they can read it.

So when Felicia says, "Okay, now on slide six, check this out. I'll let this play for a minute." They're reading their notes in some Word doc or something with their screen reader and they're laughing along just with everybody else.

[00:21:40] Felicia Asiedu: We often say pre-event and then event itself, and then post-event. But if you are not thinking about the execution on the day pre, then you're missing it. 

Let's imagine it's the day of. Okay, let's imagine someone is coming and they have this disability, then what would we do? All right, now let's use that to write the brief. I think that might be the better way to go about it so that you get the briefs right.

[00:22:05] Stephen Cutchins: Day of should just be reacting to anything that may go wrong. If you've done your planning properly, they show up with the registration desk, you print their badge. If they're blind, you can read it out to them. By the way, we're even trying to work on some cool things with some vendors. Their badge has a plastic overlay sticker that has their name in Braille display. How cool is that? I'm trying to work on that, but they go to their sessions, everything's accessible. It works with their screen reader. Vendors have been prepped, the speakers have been prepped. They know what to do when somebody's in their session. It just may be if there's any issues, you react to it.

And issues come up, they're going to come up. But just like with anything, it's not only with attendees with disabilities, it could come up with anybody. So they lost their passport, they need a toothbrush. I don't know, or something always comes up that the planner has to work on. But, yeah, if you do it right, day of should be pretty easy, I would think.

If you've ever been to an accessibility conference, I go to a lot of them, man, it's just seamless.

And some of the conferences do a tour of the hotel and the venue space early in the morning before the event starts for people who are primarily blind but low vision to let them know, "Okay, this is the layout." And they walk them through the entire event space, and they explain it in words to let them know. Because, imagine, we talked about earlier, remember from the street to the lobby, I dare you to try it with your eyes closed.

Now, imagine an entire event space. 4,000 people, you're there with a white cane and you're unable to see. It's scary. There are a lot of apps that can help, Be My Eyes. There's a lot of them, but still, and actually now they even have apps that it's the mapping of the certain venue spaces, so you can drag your finger across the app and it'll say which way you're pointing and where the different rooms are. It's pretty cool.

But getting that walkthrough of the event, and it'd take you five minutes. Walk through the event, the venue and the hotel space. Normally, they do the lobby and the venue and do a little 5-minute tour, or 10-minute tour. And then people know, I remember that I go here and they could even count their steps, I don't know, but then I go here, I make that left, I go down a little bit, the room's on the right, done. They're not literally going in blind, trying to find a room just because it says, "Oh, where's the conference room number seven?" That doesn't help them a whole lot.

[00:24:15] Felicia Asiedu: People, if you're listening, add these things to your checklist. I'm going to give some basics that I would always think about. Again, quiet rooms. You speak about the measurement, but leaving that space free for wheelchair access so that someone can just come in, and that's where they sit. You don't have to move things around because they're there. Nobody wants to be highlighted because, "Oh, sorry, a wheelchair's turned up. Let's remove seats." You don't want that. Just have some space.

If someone needs to bring someone to support them, make that accommodation as well. That happens at concerts a lot. You can bring someone with you who's going to look after you going to that concert, because some people have personal care assistants or interpreters. I think those would be my little ones that I'm going to throw in there.

[00:24:53] Stephen Cutchins: And you go back to asking our registration questions. My favorite example is, "I'm blind. I am in a wheelchair. I have a service animal, and I have a personal care assistant, so four things I need." And it sounds scary, it sounds intimidating, but it's simple things, such as like, "Okay, in the venue space on an aisle, I'm going to take away two spaces and then I'm going to reserve the one next to that." And I put just a little sign up where I can put tape on the floor or something like that to let people know, "Don't sit here, this is reserved for somebody."

And I do that as one for me in my wheelchair, that's the second space. The one right next to me, where there's an actual chair, that's my personal care assistant. And then the other second space by the aisle is my service animal because I don't want him out there. He's going to get kicked or step on his tail. And it's as simple as just taking away two spaces and putting up a little tape or putting some signs up.

And now, I know when she comes into registration, I know she registered, I know she has a service animal wheelchair, she's blind, she has a personal care assistant. When you go down the main aisle, about halfway down on the right, we have space reserved for you, done.

And if you do that in advance and let her know it'll be comfortable and greet her the right way, know what the accommodations you made, she's going to be happy. She's going to stay at your event, and I bet more people than just one Mary are going to be at the next one. And it's going to keep going and keep going and keep going.

Let's say it's about 25% globally if people have a disability. Now, some of those might be not obvious or minor hearing loss, minor sight loss, minor physical disability, have to use a cane. Those people will still come to your conferences, right? So it's really not 25% more people, but it might be 5, it might be 10, it might be 15, and that's a pretty big number. If there are 10% of people at all of your events that will not go because have disabilities, that's a really big number.

[00:26:37] Felicia Asiedu: If you could almost personalize it and say, "This is John, this is Sam, this is Harv, this is so-and-so." They all didn't come to your event because it wasn't accessible. If you put faces and names, people would be mortified. "You felt like I excluded you," but because we're talking numbers, I think sometimes people find that really difficult to kind of visualize. 

[00:26:59] Stephen Cutchins: Boy, if we could just query people and go, "Tell me why you didn't go to X, Y, Z conference. And you live in London, it's one stop away from your house, why didn't you go?" Well, they didn't answer me. Ask my registration questions. They didn't have a contact us thing, or I contacted them and never heard back. There could be a million different reasons, but essentially, there's a Mary out there and probably 2 and 3 and 5 and 10, and the numbers grow, who just won't go to your event. They'll take their money and go elsewhere.

This is US only, but there was a Chicago-based nonprofit called Open Doors Organization, and did a query of 2004 to track people with disabilities over two years. There were like 77 million trips taken by people with disabilities. They spent $50 billion doing so. The amount of trips that people with disabilities are making, so it could be driving, it could be train, or flight, but it's at $50 billion doing so. And that's just US.

If they're going to spend $50 billion traveling, they'll gladly spend that money and go to your conference because your conference is awesome. You have fireworks and live music and it's just exciting, but they're not. They're not going to it, and they're taking their money and going elsewhere. So we need to change that. Really, really need to change that.

[00:28:17] Felicia Asiedu: All right. Let's quick-fire through the rest of your on the day. What do some planners get wrong with badging and check-in?

[00:28:25] Stephen Cutchins: This goes back to our quiet rooms. Some people might have issues with social situations. So I think look out for people who may not be willing to come right up to you. And if they're a little standoffish or they seem like they're nervous, "Come on up, come on up." That might not work well for them. And they might leave.

So be cognizant that some people may not be comfortable in a social situation, and it may not be good to approach them in the typical, "Hey, I'm Stephen Cutchins. How are you doing? Welcome to Cvent Connect. Can I help you register?" I have just terrified this person, and they're going to walk away. They might stand a little bit away.

It's not that you have to treat them with kid glove, but just understand, they might not be exactly like you. And if you're that social butterfly, they might not be like that. So be a little aware that they might have a different situation.

[00:29:16] Felicia Asiedu: That leads us very nicely to the next one, networking. So you've got social anxiety, mobility issues, sensory overload. What are some practical fixes that can just ease networking?

[00:29:28] Stephen Cutchins: We still want to do those events, but we want to try to think of people who still want to socialize. They might not be able to dive into the crowd, so there might be areas that are more quiet. They might not be able to go down to the event at all, so still give them ways to socialize.

It could just be through a mobile app. There are people that I guarantee will go to your event that will not go to the social events. They're there to learn. They want to learn the great things that happen at these events, but they're just terrified of social situations. And we have to realize that they still want to connect with other people.

Could be through a mobile app. That's actually the perfect one. Offers like chat. They're perfectly fine. Completely happy being away from the crowd, but still interacting with other people. There's a lot of things you can do to make sure you don't put somebody's recovery at risk, but don't just say, "Come on down, come to the huge room where there's lots of lights and lots of action and lots of sound and then network and find your next job, your new contact." Some people can't do that, but they might be the one. They're the perfect one for that job. They just can't be down with all the action. So give them options.

[00:30:33] Felicia Asiedu: There's tons of virtual and hybrid events happening. People thought, "I think they died after COVID," but actually our data says they're still happening. Is there anything that people need to think about to take care of during those types of online events?

[00:30:44] Stephen Cutchins: Chat gives those options of somebody who might be home. Maybe they just weren't able to attend. They have work. They may be physically unable to attend, or they don't trust you, but they'll still do the hybrid option. They don't trust that you're going to accommodate them. They can still go through and do the chat. And I love online chats, I think especially on mobile, they allow people to connect in a way that they may not normally be able to connect. I think they're fantastic.

On your marketing website, make sure it's the same web content accessibility guidelines. When you show up, you hand out an agenda, you hand out a thing printed on paper. If I'm blind, that's not really going to help me. So make sure you have an agenda online that preferably that I can pick.

Software supports this. Make sure you use it all. Disability related conferences, they'll even have printed agendas in braille, which is great. But an alternative is a lot of people are like, "How do I do that? I don't know. What's the price?" Accessible software that supports it is a very, very good step for somebody who's coming in person who might not be able to read that printout that you're giving them.

[00:31:43] Felicia Asiedu: We're going to wrap up with after the event. So we're thinking about, I guess, surveys, typical event data. What can we be putting in front of our attendees to learn? Did it work? All that effort you've put in, maybe can we track what accessibility features got used through a survey, through tech? What can we do?

[00:32:01] Stephen Cutchins: We send surveys. I think every planner probably does. Or at least pick and choose who they're going to send it to, 5% of the attendees, 10% attendees. In those surveys, ask people with disabilities targeted questions. "Did the food work for you? You said you have a food allergy. Were there any issues reading the signage, the placards on the tables? Did the captions work for you? You said you needed a sign language interpreter. Did the sign language interpreter work?"

Also, ask people who didn't identify as having a disability. Ask them if they used any of those accommodations. For example, captions. On the big stage, normally, the captions run on the bottom. That's where somebody's legs are. So I love the ones where they had the captions on the side, a separate monitor, at least have it on your mobile app. Ask people if they used it.

Gen Z, 30% or 35% or something of them use captions on their TV at least part of the time. That number is staggering. And I know 30% or 35% of them don't have a visual disability. So they just use it because it makes it easier to understand the content. Somebody's whispering, they might have a heavy accent. "I don't understand that. Let me turn on captions and go back 30 seconds and read what they were trying to say."

So in your surveys, ask people if they used them because a lot more people probably did than you think. And the last one is, I think it was Connect UK. Majority of people who use that low sensory room, they did it to get away from the crazy sound and the excitement of the event. They just wanted to get away. They didn't have, let's say, a disability that mandated that. They just liked it. So if they like it, do it. It's going to make them come back next time.

"Oh, I love at Cvent Connect, they had that low sensory room that was so great to get away. No phones ringing. No people tap it on keyboards. I just needed 20 minutes to just take a break. It's fantastic." And I guarantee the next year, maybe you'll get more people using it.

[00:33:43] Felicia Asiedu: That's a really good way for us to wrap, because we've been talking over the past, God knows how many years, about diversity, inclusion, accessibility. They just kind of get rolled and wrapped into this one big like, "Fine, we'll accept people that are different."

But actually, what we're saying is, let's go back to the human. Everybody's different. Everybody has different needs. And accessibility at its core is about making your event accessible for everybody. Even if they don't identify as, "Okay, I have a particular need." There will be those people that just need a quiet space because that's what that person needs. And so your event needs to accommodate difference. And why not? That's how we make the human race, right? 

Thank you, Stephen. I'm just going to ask you one more question just so that our planners and our marketers and everyone listening can get some help. Give us one accessibility win that just doesn't even cost anything.

[00:34:36] Stephen Cutchins: I would say ask the questions in registration. Is that a fair one? I've said that a bunch of times. Always ask questions and don't just say US terms, ADA. So ask the questions, go into detail. "Do you require a sign language interpreter?" And you can Google these. You can email me, and I'll give you a list of questions that I've gotten that I put together. 

So during registration, ask the questions. That's the best way to get the ball rolling because that's the best way to guarantee, I think at least, that they're willing to go the next step and go, "I'm going to give it a shot. Felicia has this conference. It looks cool. I think I'm the perfect attendee. I'm going to give her a shot because she's asking questions about my needs, and they match my situation." So please ask the questions. It'll make people so much more comfortable.

[00:35:18] Felicia Asiedu: Thank you so much, Stephen, for joining me today. It's been an amazing conversation. 

[00:35:22] Stephen Cutchins: Thanks very much as always. It's always a pleasure.

[00:35:26] Alyssa Peltier: Thanks for hanging out with us on Great Events, a podcast by Cvent. If you've been enjoying our podcast, make sure to hit that subscribe button so you never miss an episode.

[00:35:36] Rachel Andrews: And you can help fellow event professionals and marketers just like you discover Great Events by leaving us a rating on Apple, Spotify, or your preferred podcast platform.

[00:35:46] Felicia Asiedu: Stay connected with us on social media for behind-the-scenes content, updates, and some extra doses of inspiration.

[00:35:53] Rachel Andrews: Got a great story or an event to share? We want to hear from you. Find us on LinkedIn, send us a DM, or drop us a note at greatevents@cvent.com.

[00:36:03] Felicia Asiedu: Big thanks to our amazing listeners, our guest speakers, and the incredible team behind the scenes. Remember, every great event begins with great people.

[00:36:13] Alyssa Peltier: And that's a wrap! Keep creating, keep innovating, and keep joining us as we redefine how to make events great.