Facilities for an accessible festival

Facilities 2023

This year, we are once again putting maximum effort into accessibility and hospitality. Below is an overview of the facilities and adaptations.

We are happy to provide tailor-made advice, so feel free to send your question or wish to toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl.

Do you have questions on our pin-only policy? Send an e-mail for more information to toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl.

Toilets

Boulevard has binary, genderinclusive toilets at the festival heart in the Zuiderpark.
No longer is there a strict seperation man/woman. Do not forget to wash your hands after a visit to the restroom ;-) There are also wheelchair-accessible toilets, as is the case in most locations.

The Sign Language Coffeebar

This year, we can welcome a special coffee experience to the festival. Gebaristas, who are hearing impaired, will serve you delicious coffee. Thanks to a crash course board, you order flawlessly in sign language. You will learn something new, enjoy your coffee moment and so you can connect with people in a different way.

Language and surtitles

On the webpage of a performance you can find all the information about the spoken language and possible surtitles. Moreover you can find information on whether it is a visual or textual performance.

New this year is the Sign Language coffee bar. Here you can order coffee through sign language. While using Dutch sign language, you order your favourite coffee using the menu on a video screen. The deaf barista then passionately prepares your order. Via the video screen, visitors can also learn the signs associated with their order.

Relaxed performance

We offer some performances as a 'relaxed performance'. This is explicitly stated on the web page for a performance. Together with our artists and audiences, we are investigating what exactly a 'relaxed performance' is.

In any case, we now assume a number of characteristics:
• The room light never goes out completely.
• There is no loud music and there are no unexpected effects such as explosions and flashes of light.
• You can make noise and move if necessary, or if you have no choice.
• There is the possibility to go away for a while and come back again.

We especially welcome to these performances everyone who finds it difficult to follow the standard theater conventions, such as people with learning or movement disorders, autism, neurological conditions.

The following performances offer an relaxed performance:

Karlijn Hamer with Siriana, mijn vriendin

Karlijn Hamer is back on Festival Boulevard. Her musical performance Siriana, mijn vriendin will premiere in Siriana's hometown, Den Bosch. Siriana received an autism diagnosis at the age of thirty after many errors in social care. A revelation that could have saved her a lot of suffering if she had known why the world comes to her so differently than to most people.

71BODIES / Daniel Mariblanca with A True Story

A True Story is a multidisciplinary project with dance, performance and live music. It is about transgender childhood, transgender parenting and family relationships. The project is inspired and based on the experiences of transgender people and their family members. The ages of the protagonists in A True Story range from 8 to 85 years old.

Corpo Máquina Society with It takes a Child to raise a Village / FREE (AL)

In It takes a Child to raise a Village/ FREE, freerunning and theater come together in an interactive encounter with children from Den Bosch West. Last year, choreographer Guilherme Miotto's company Corpo Máquina Society invited children to go on a journey of discovery with freestyle football players and dancers in the gymnasium of BBS de Kruiskamp. With It takes a Child to raise a Village/FREE, the company returns to this location.

Audiodescriptie and Meet and Feel

A part of the regular program of Boulevard is suitable for people with a visual impairment (without the support of audio description). You can find this on our website in the menu ‘Accessibility’ in the program overview.

As soon as it is known at which performances audiodescription is possible, we will mention those on this page.

Wheelchair accessibility

Our festival locations are good accessibility for wheelchairs; ramps and walkways are used as much as possible.

There are disabled parking spaces on the Parade (location Parade) and in the parking garage Sint Jan (location Zuiderpark). You can find changing rooms and disabled toilets at the Parade and in the Zuiderpark and at various locations.

There are special wheelchair spaces in most of our venues. When a performance is not accessible for wheelchairs it it mentioned on the page of a performance.

When you buy ticket(s) you can chose for the option wheelchair user. If you like to give us more information, for example of the sort of wheelchair (electric or regular) you are using. You can contact us via toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl.

There are people to offer assistance at the venue in case that is necessary.

Please contact us via toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl for:
·      Wheelchair-accessible buses from the Zuiderpark to the faraway performance venues. On request only! Please send an email to toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl to reserve a spot.
·      Free ticket for companions/supporters with a companion pass, book through toegankelijkheid@festivalboulevard.nl.
·      Assistance or extra facilities

Low stimulus program

Aside from plenty of opportunities to retreat in the festival heart in the Zuiderpark, we also offer a number of performances that we have labeled as 'low-stimulus'.

To ensure that this is also the case for you, you can get more information via accessibility@festivalboulevard.nl. That is also the place for other requests (for example resting places in between performances).

The low-stimulus performances can be found on the program page under the menu 'Accessibility'.

Free programme

Enjoy theatre, dance, music and more for free. Via the button below you can see our free programme. On that page you also see a few performances with a low price.

For every budget

Improvements on our website

We have made a few improvements on our website. Because of this the information is better programmed for external tools such as screen readers which can be used to read the information on our website.

The navigation on our website has improved. You can see on every page where you are. This makes it easier to get back to the previous page. Moreover this makes it easier to navigate through are website for people who are using one button.

And we are happy to add a new feature to our site, which makes it possible to view the website stimulus arm. This option deactivates animations, colors and moving images. You can activate this option by pressing on the yellow eye at the top right of your screen.

All these optimizations have laid a good foundation for the future.