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Introduction
Despite the significance of the contribution of events to quality of life, identity, community cohesion and empowerment, the implications for communities outside the mainstream have escaped researchers' scrutiny. Disability affects an estimated 15% of the world's people, and this is predicted to increase due to an ageing population and a rise in chronic health conditions (World Health Organisation, 2011). In Aotearoa New Zealand, the setting for this research, a 2013 survey found that 24% of the population were limited by a learning, mental health, sensory or physical impairment. However, there are inequities within this figure: 59% of people aged over 65 identified as disabled, as did 32% of Māori (the Indigenous peoples of Aotearoa New Zealand) when adjusted for age (Office for Disability Issues, 2022a; Office for Disability Issues, 2022b).
Disabled people have a fundamental human right to meaningful participation and inclusion in cultural activities that contribute to their well-being and quality of life (World Health Organisation, 2011; United Nations, 2006), such as events, yet until recently they have been largely neglected by critical event studies academics. In the last 2–3 years, a small but growing body of research has served to highlight some of the issues faced by the disabled community in relation to event attendance. Much of this work has centred on issues of physical access (to venues, transport, experiences, information) and has been carried out in a variety of event contexts such as agricultural shows in the UK (Wiscombe, 2019), community events in the rural USA (Sage and Flores, 2019), indigenous events in Mexico (Barrera-Fernández and Hernández-Escampa, 2019), music festivals in the UK and Portugal (Bossey, 2020; Dinis et al., 2020) and the 2016 Paralympic Games in Rio de Janeiro (Dos Santos Neto et al., 2019).
While physical access is undoubtedly important, two valuable studies encourage us to delve deeper and consider notions of social access. Jamieson and Todd (2022) critically examine and foreground the importance of representation for the disabled community – both across and within festival networks – which is needed for festivals to be inclusive public spaces. Likewise, Sage and Flores (2019) argue that community events are crucial avenues for disabled people to engage with others (and vice versa) and make a visible contribution to the...