Festival Accessibility with Access Veteran Sarah Aziz

Being able to keep many balls in the air is one of Sarah Aziz’s strengths as Director of Festival Management at the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust. Aziz programs the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, a free music and art festival that draws over 500,000 people to Pittsburgh’s Point State Park over the course of 10 days, as well as Highmark First Night Pittsburgh, a family-friendly New Year’s celebration that takes place in Pittsburgh’s Cultural District.

In addition to her project management expertise, Sarah brings a holistic approach to accessibility to the Trust festivals. Prior to starting at the Trust in 2015, Sarah developed an awareness for accessibility during her time at the Theater Development Fund (TDF)where she worked as a temp prior to joining full time in 2005. In her tenure at TDF, Sarah grew from coordinating ASL interpreted Broadway matinees for elementary and secondary students to working with the team that launched the pilot of Autism Friendly Performances on Broadway with Disney’s The Lion King. 

When asked about the learning curve at the start of her career in accessibility and programming, Sarah says, “the access community is very open. They were very open and accepting and excited to tell me exactly what they wanted, what they weren’t getting and what they need to get and how we could do it for them.”

Sarah quickly expanded Festival accessibility initiatives in her position at the Trust. The first year she managed the Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival, she added ASL interpretation to every headliner performance. “I just went at it from the programming and the more visible end because I felt I had control over those things,” she states. “As an organization we’re trying to communicate a lot so putting access on the mainstage was my solution to increase public’s awareness of the Trust’s focus on inclusion and diversity.”

The Dollar Bank Three Rivers Arts Festival now offers ASL interpretation for all headliner concerts and on request for any other performance, open captioning on a jumbotron for all festival announcements, wheelchairs available on-site, and a tactile map of the festival footprint. 

Sarah doesn’t stop at providing services though, she builds inclusion into the program itself. In the past four years of programming the festival, her lineups have included a chorus from the Western Pennsylvania School for the Deaf, 4 Wheel City, hip hop artists who use wheelchairs, and a Deaf dance group. In June 2017, she programmed a visual art exhibit titled We Art Here, curated by an artist who is Deaf featuring work by people with disabilities. A now annual feature of the festival is the Anthropology of Motherhood: Feeding Room, a functional art installation that provides parents a private place to nurse and features art both by mothers and for children.

Not every initiative and program piece has been successful. She tried to incorporate a sensory-friendly quiet tent into the outdoor festival. “We learned that, try as you might, a tent is not quiet,” she says of the attempt. Undissuaded, the team is already thinking about options and possibilities to create this space for the 2020 festival.

Similar to her early days at TDF, Sarah lets the community lead her in the right direction. The director will talk anecdotally to groups throughout the festival if she notices someone using a service. “What I have learned the most is that you have to talk to the community and you have to have community advocates,” she emphasizes. “It’s much more powerful if a person with a disability comes to you with a request than if a consultant comes to you with an offering.”

As an access veteran, what does Sarah dream of? Access services listed on all (and she means all) marketing materials. “It’s important that we tell everyone the services we offer so they’re not happening in a vacuum. Everyone knows someone who needs some sort of accommodation. If we can get those folks to our Festivals and into our theaters, creative events that are truly inclusive, that’s the real dream.” 

Images courtesy of the Pittsburgh Cultural Trust