The SeeAbility Marketing, Digital and Communications team were the proud winners of the Accessible Comms Award at the CharityComms Inspiring Communicator Awards. The award reflects the team’s hard work, in partnership with official Eurovision partner Baileys, to make the magic of Eurovision more inclusive for its blind and visually impaired fans.

The team held focus groups with people with lived experience of learning disabilities, autism and visual impairments, including broadcaster Amar Latif and disability campaigner Scott Watkin BEM.

Through these insights, SeeAbility provided accessibility training and detailed step by step recommendations for 2024 and beyond, particularly focusing on audio description, including for Eurovision royalty Conchita Wurst to present her audio introduction with the right amount of descriptive imagery. The team also provided best practice examples for holistic accessibility, including on-site in Malmö.  

Baileys took many of these recommendations on board and introduced audio descriptions of each act. These were released on Spotify, available for anyone to listen to alongside the live broadcast.

One member of the focus groups that fed into the work shared their feelings about the improvement in accessibility at Eurovision: “It means so much. Not just in watching the Eurovision Song Contest, but afterwards, the conversations that you can have with people. You feel fully part of society. It means so, so much more than just that one evening. It makes you feel confident in life. You feel great.”

Kat Akass, SeeAbility’s Head of Marketing, Digital and Communications said: 

“We were so pleased to see such a large organisation invest in accessibility from our partnership and we’re excited to work with more external organisations to improve accessibility, making the world more inclusive for everyone.

“By making things accessible, we make sure everyone can access important information and experiences, and in doing so, we take a step closer to true inclusion. We were so proud to support disabled people to share their invaluable insights to influence and shape the experience of a large cultural moment, ensuring everyone could feel a part of this spectacular event.” 

Eurovision photo credit:
Alma-Bengtsson / EBU