Captioning Awareness Week 2023 takes place from Monday 13th to Sunday 19th November, and is an annual campaign to raise awareness of captioning and deaf access to the arts and cultural sector.
Live performances such as theatre, offer an opportunity to connect with emotions, stories, and creativity on a profound level. However, for many people who are deaf, deafened or hard of hearing, this connection may be disrupted due to the lack of accessibility options such as captions or live subtitles..
Below is a list of the resources that we shared during Captioning Awareness Week but are available to arts and cultural organisations all year round.
Captioning Display Standards – A guide to help venues understand the principles of quality captions for all live scripted theatre captions, whether displayed on a caption unit, a tablet or phone, or online.
Stagetext’s training – Perhaps you and your team could benefit from an introduction to deaf awareness or more focused training to produce your own subtitles.
Venue best practice checklist – Our best practice checklist gives you a starting point on how to make sure your venue is accessible.
Digital subtitling guidelines – Our guidelines will help you format your subtitles to give your audience the best experience possible.
Digital subtitling webinars – A series of free webinars available to help you get started subtitling your own videos. These webinars will teach you the importance of deaf awareness, why access is so essential, and how to use YouTube’s free platform to create your own subtitles.
Understanding the audience – Our helpful infographics will give you a quick insight into the size of your potential deaf audience, show you how people use subtitles differently, and support your understanding of who benefits from access.
Find out what’s happening during the week and how to get involved here.
Deafinitely Girly - Blogger
Why is this campaign important?
Captioned performances and exhibitions have brought to life some of the best arts in the UK, making a huge difference to those who were unable to access them before 2000.
What are captions?
Captions are similar to television subtitles, but with the actors’ or presenters’ words appearing on screens at the same time as they are spoken or sung.
