BuskerFest Accessibility
This year is no different. However, this year the ranting post and the one with photos from BuskerFest that are not related to accessibility issues will be split up. Today, I rant. Tomorrow, I share the fun.
The ranting part involves two targets. One is clueless people. Of which there were many. We started the festivities by catching the end of a performance that involved fire. My latent pyromaniac loves such things, so we decided to check it out. Even better, the grand finale involved the performer jumping through a ring of fire on a skateboard. The reason this was so terrific (aside from the jumping through a ring of fire) was that he needed to have a good run in order to make the jump and asked the crowd to open up and create a clear path. All of a sudden, instead of just black smoke above people’s heads, I could see the ring of fire and I quickly got out my camera and focused on the flames. Whooosh! Someone on a skateboard flew past me and equally whoosh! The crowd close up the circle again. Giving me this photo of the daredevil act
A bit later, the ant herder and his charges went by (don’t worry, this will make sense tomorrow) and I was just about to get a terrific photo of the guy when some woman felt compelled to walk in front of me so she could see him better.
And then there is BuskerFest itself. Last year, I wrote about how they had implemented an Accessibility Strategy to address complaints from people such as myself who are in effect completely excluded from participating in this event. Last year, I even gave one thumbs-up (no need to get crazy) to the efforts, had a good time and didn’t get to crabby about the whole thing. Want to hear how this year went?
On Thursday during the setup, I walked home from the grocery store and came to a point on the sidewalk that was being blocked off by a street vendor cart and some luggage. I cleared my throat meaningfully, thinking that people were just in the middle of moving things around, but was told that they’d let me through, but after that, the sidewalk was being blocked again. I commented all friendly like that there are a lot of people with disabilities in this neighborhood who might want to use the sidewalk, to which they cheerfully replied “walk-through is on the street!” Nevermind if you wanted to go to the bank or the supermarket…
To be honest, I really don’t think that you can make a festival of street performers terribly accessible. The nature of the beast is that people are going to watch performances in tightly packed circles, so that limits to what you can reasonably expect.
However, you can expect that entrances will be placed in a location that do not block wheelchairs from getting out to the sidewalk. You can expect that sidewalks will not be blocked. And you can expect more people in blue T-shirts.
And by the way… Hanks and Wine Bar still don’t want my business.