22 August 2011 Access to Cinemas - Lights, Camera, Access

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3wH0pae6MYY

In 2010 people in the UK visited the cinema nearly 170 million times and spent almost £990 million watching movies on the big screen.

Cinemas are popular places for young people to spend their leisure time. Disabled people make up 12 percent of the cinema going audience but the experience they get isn't always the same as their able-bodied peers.

After a number of incidents affecting Trailblazers, who were branded fire-risks by cinema staff members and forced to sit in wheelchair seating areas that had bad views of the screen, the network decided that the cinema industry needed further investigation.

Read the results of Trailblazers' new investigation, published today in our report The Big Picture. 

Watch our film Lights, Camera, Access:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=osC17khnKe0


What we did

Over the winter and spring of 2011 more than 100 Trailblazers went out into their local communities and visited and rated their local major chain and independent cinemas. They completed surveys, interviewed cinema managers and architects, wrote blogs, set up a petition and made their own documentary that showed the big picture of access in UK cinemas today.

Key findings

  • One in three of the major chain cinemas have bad or very bad views of the screen from the wheelchair accessible seating area.
  • Of the independent cinemas, 96 percent have good or very good views of the screen from the wheelchair accessible seating area.
  • More than half of all major chain cinemas have uncomfortable accessible seating areas.
  • Eight out of ten independent cinemas have comfortable wheelchair accessible seating areas.
  • One third of the major chain cinemas have poor access between the ticket office and the auditorium.
  • 86 per cent of independent or small chains have easy or very easy access between the ticket office and the auditorium.
  • One in three of the major chain cinemas have bad or very bad staff disability awareness.
  • Eight out ten independent cinemas have good or very good staff disability awareness.
  • Almost half of independent and major chain cinemas did not offer an online ticket service for disabled customers.
  • One in five major chain cinemas do not accept the Cinema Exhibitors Association discount card or offer another discount for disabled customers and a carer.

Action Needed:
 

We are calling on cinema exhibitors to:

  • work with organisations like Trailblazers to come up with solutions to the problems faced by disabled cinema goers;
  • sign up to the Trailblazers charter of best practice for cinemas;
  • put accessibility at the heart of the cinema industry and to invest in their disabled customers; 
  • ensure all facilities like accessible toilets and lifts are well maintained and when broken, fixed as quickly as possible;
  • train their staff members in good disability awareness and ensure disabled cinema goers are not accused of being health and safety risks;
  • install lifts, banisters and ramps and low level counters to ensure disabled customers can enjoy a similar experience to their non disabled peers;
  • discuss seating possibilities with disabled people who know where they want sit and why;
  • promote the CEA card discount scheme and ensure disabled people are made aware of who qualifies and how they can join.

Read the results of Trailblazers' new investigation, published today in our report The Big Picture. 

Tags: East Midlands, East of England, Events, London, North East, Northern Ireland, Scot, South East, South West, Wales, West Midlands, Yorkshire and the Humber, access, campaigning, cinema, detrimental, disability, disabled, expense, punished, support, tourism

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