Independent Venue Week & Gig Buddies / Stay Up Late
Stay Up Late is a charity, who's aim is to promote the rights for people with learning disabilities to choose how they live their lives.
Independent Venue Week is a 7 day celebration of small music venues around the UK & 'a nod to the people that own, run and work in them, week in, week out' Like Stay Up Late / Gig Buddies they like to celebrate the diversity of the wonderful smaller-scale live music scene across the UK.
Stay Up Late will be subsidising tickets for adults with a learning disability to bring an accompanying person for support (thanks to Arts Council for funding this). Many venues may already offer this as it is general good practice for ensuring disability equality, but as this can be difficult for smaller venues they would love everyone to take this opportunity to enable people to enjoy Independent Venue Week.
See below for Stay Up Late's guide on the practical stuff
The practical stuff:
We can refund a ticket for a helper / personal assistant / accompanying person of a disabled customer going to check out a gig during Independent Venue Week, up to the value of £12.
ow to get your refund:
- Let us know the gig that you are planning to attend first (there's a limited amount of money so we need to know numbers)
- Email Madeline a copy or picture of your ticket or receipt – madeline@stayuplate.org
- Let Madeline know your bank details or the address to send a cheque to.
- Let Madeline know the name of the disabled customer, and organisation that are in contact with Gig Buddies that you heard about Independent Venue Week through.
After the gig, the audience member with a learning disability should send Stay Up Late a review of the gig. This could be a bit of writing, a video, a recorded interview, a photo, a picture… The most creative one will win the £40 voucher. Check out our guide to doing reviews here.
Send your reviews to Madeline! They will be judged by some of our gig buddies people, and the winner will be announced in February.