Preferred seating for people with vision/mobility issues

Have reserved seating for people who need a clear view of the screen, or are in a wheelchair and can’t move into the row.

These are both ideas I saw at AlterConf London, and have yet to see anywhere else.

Some people can happily sit anywhere, but for other people, certain seats are better than others:

• If you have vision problems, it’s easier to sit nearer the front so you can have a clear view of the slides.

• If you’re hard-of-hearing, you want to sit close to the front, with a good view of the live captioning screens (if there are any).

• At AlterConf, there were aisle spaces marked out in blue tape for wheelchair users, so they could sit in the audience with their friends. Often wheelchair spaces are near the back, away from everybody else – having them inline is better. If you don’t want to mark out explicit spaces, think about whether you can move or rearrange chairs for a wheelchair user to sit in the aisle or at the front.