Stagetext is delighted to announce that The Arts Council England (ACE) has increased our funding to include support for the first time to our museum and galleries Talks programme.
In the last year Stagetext captioned over 1,000 events within Theatres, Museums and Galleries, reaching an estimated 350,000 users; the ACE funding will allow Stagetext to grow this audience even further and increase access across the UK’s arts and cultural venues.
Chief Executive, Melanie Sharpe, said: “This is very exciting news; it’s recognising the hard work and unique service that Stagetext has developed over the past 5 years within the Museum and Galleries sector.
We hope to continue to support the sector with providing regular events that are open to everyone, ensuring that all can enjoy a happy cultural life where hearing loss isn’t a barrier to participation.”
Stagetext’s Talks Programme works with museums, galleries and other cultural venues to make their talks and tours accessible through live subtitles.
Talks Programme Manager, Deepa Shastri, said: “The funding we receive from ACE is so important because it helps us produce a service where deaf, deafened and hard of hearing people can engage with live events.
Any museum or cultural venue can provide live subtitling, even if they have limited resources, we can consult and guide all venues, from how much funding to apply for right through to managing the service in-house, thus making the whole process fool proof and exciting.”
Stagetext is amongst the few Arts Council’s National Portfolio that received an uplift in funding, which have only been awarded to exceptional cases.
