In this blog post, we want to say a few words about the accessibility of our conference events. At the same time, we want to introduce you to some companies and organizations that have been supporting us financially in implementing these efforts.

Our main conference venue is more than a hundred years old, and therefore not built for great accessibility by design. However, we’re committed to make attending as easy as possible for everyone. It is possible to enter the venue step-free using a wheelchair lift at a side entrance. Once inside, there is an elevator connecting the ground floor with the first, and everything on the floors is also accessible step-free. We’ll have all-gender, gendered and wheelchair-compatible toilets available. Our sprints venue is mostly wheelchair-accessible, please contact us for detailed information, if you need it. We’re happy to help!

We will have simultaneous speech-to-text transcription of all talks to make it easier to follow for everyone who is hard of hearing, or just not a native speaker and struggling with with speed of some speakers. The speech-to-text transcriptions will be shown on large screens to the side of the stage, and we’ll reserve a number of seats close to them for everyone who needs it. If you use a hearing aid that supports it, an audio induction loop system is installed at the venue.

We want to warmly thank Divio for sponsoring our subtitling efforts!

Thanks to our sponsor 89grad, we’ve been able to offer childcare in order to lower the barrier to attend for all parents among our attendees. Due to lack of demand, we’ll not have childcare at the conference this year, so we used these funds to contribute further to our other efforts listed in this blog post.

We will have a quiet room on both the talks and the sprints venue for everyone who needs a short break from the noise and hecticness that a conference can create. Use it to recharge your inner batteries and prepare for the fun to continue.

During some of the conference days a physical health coach will be offering 20 minute sessions to give guidance, free of charge, on how to improve posture, daily energy levels and health in general. This includes small exercises you can do at your desk or in small work breaks, as well as dietary tips. If you’re interested, please let us know, so that we can estimate how much time and resources we need to plan for it!

With the financial backing of five amazing organizations, namely the Django Software Foundation, the Python Software Foundation, the EuroPython Society, the German Python Association and the Django Society UK, we’ve been able to support 17 attendees who couldn’t join otherwise by giving them a free ticket, and in most cases paying for all or some of their travel expenses through our Opportunity Grants programme.

Thanks to our sponsor AX Semantics, we’ve been able to put together small baskets of toiletries that we’ll have ready for you on site, just in case you forgot your toothbrush at home.

With all these efforts, we hope to make DjangoCon Europe 2018 a welcoming place to everyone interested in Django. If you have any question about accessibility at the conference or have any special requests, we’ll do everything we can to make it happen. Just drop us a line at [email protected]!