Autism friendly festivals

Greetings Earthlings! 🙂

This week I’d like to talk about the subject of autism friendly festivals.

Yes- you heard me correctly! 😀

Festivals and autism are not really two words that tend to go together, what with the crowds, noises, smells and flashing lights, but recent years have seen large music festivals such as Electric Picnic and Glastonbury set up specific sensory friendly tents for neurodivergent attendees. In addition to this, there are now a number of specific autism friendly festivals.

Autism charity ASIAM recently launched the Sensoria festival in Dublin as part of a 3 year plan to make Dublin the world’s first autism friendly city. A free ticketed event, the festival took place at two different times in the day to keep crowds to a minimum, offering sensory domes, pods and gardens, a messy play tactile zone, neurodiversity information tents and therapy dogs. In addition to these sensory friendly modifications, a number of sensory activities and performances were arranged including non verbal street theatre, sensory movement workshops, sensory silent films, and a unique show titled ‘Squish, Stomp, Spin – The Magic of Stim’ by ADHD artist Moss Russell.

Similarly in the UK, the Spectrum Autism Friendly Festival has been running since 2017. The festival is run by staff that are fully trained about autism, and offers attendees an enriching experience with sensory areas and quiet spaces in addition to fun activities such as cooking classes, arts and crafts, bouncy castles, treasure hunts, pedal carts, and even light saber training!

Whilst these autism friendly festivals are a great incentive, they are largely geared at children, which is a little disheartening for autistic adults with sensory issues. In Reading in the UK however, the A Different World Festival has been established to cater to older autists. Inspired by their teenage son who could not access the Reading Festival as an autist, the organizers set up A Different World to allow young people and adults with additional needs to experience a real rock festival. This festival follows normal festival formats, but limits numbers to reduce crowding and ensure space, allows no strobe lighting or pyrotechnics, has a sensory village, a service dog tent, and a wellness tent to cater for everyone’s needs.

Hope you enjoyed this post dear Earthlings!

Have a lovely weekend 🙂

Aoife