Latitude for Deaf people

I’ve never really been a festival goer. I’ve been to the V Fest for the day, and I once went to Hyde Park to see Oasis (Kaisbian were one of the supporting groups and they were amazing!).  I even went to the KLFM concert one evening simply because it was cheap (not many tickets were getting sold so they were dirt cheap… quite a nice evening, especially as there were no queues in the bar.. because hardly anyone was there!!) but it was rather cold and full of debut acts.

 I’ve never camped anywhere further than my back garden. Partly because I’ve never needed too, but partly because the thought of not being able to hear people around the tent whilst I’m asleep kinda scares me!

One of my friends who works as a BSL interpreter told me about Latitude and how it’s one of the major festivals with deaf access. They actively promote Latitude to deaf people by offering cheaper ticket deals to ensure they can come, providing BSL interpreters for some of the goings on. It all sounds amazing but in the bottom of my heart I know that doesn’t really help me. I am deaf, with a hearing family, brought up orally and although I’ve learnt some BSL I’m definitely not confident enough to follow BSL 100%. I’m also not able to follow speech 100% of the time, I rely heavily on lip-reading which can involve several incidents/frustrations with accents, moustaches and generally lazy talkers!

For all you deaf readers, please consider Latitude, things can get even better if people show their support and enthusiasm for additional deaf access. Perhaps in the future we could get certain events captioned for those inbetweeners (not the film!!) like me. But things can only improve or become better if we communicate our needs and fight for equal access. Just because we happen to have some sort of hearing loss, doesn’t mean we don’t deserve to know what’s going on.