Disability arts and sports festival will be a double ‘spectacle’ and could aid fightback on media hostility

A major new festival next year that will bring together the worlds of disability arts and para-sport could help fight back against right-wing media organisations that are constantly trying to “castigate” disabled people, according to a leading disability arts figure.

The Inclusive Sport and Culture Festival will take place in Liverpool next May and will feature a £1 million arts and cultural programme, funded by Arts Council England and led by disabled artists.

That programme will run between 2 and 8 May 2027 and take place alongside four international para-sport competitions in boccia, athletics, wheelchair rugby and canoeing.

Tony Heaton, whose seminal work Great Britain from a Wheelchair has recently been purchased for the national Arts Council Collection, is chairing a cultural advisory group that will help to shape the event, which is supported by Arts Council England and run by UK Sport, with £2.3 million National Lottery funding.

He told Disability News Service (DNS) that the festival would be both “an arts spectacle and a sports spectacle”.

And he said it could not come at a better time because the country has “entered an era of politics that is hopefully about better news, and about hope, and about working together, and being the best we can as a country”.

The festival, he said, will be a “celebration of the things that [disabled people] are good at and the things that we’re interested in, and the things that tell the world something about us in very positive ways”.

And he said he was “absolutely certain” that it would strengthen the disability arts movement and bring it to “a new young audience”.

Disabled artist Zoe Partington, the festival’s programme adviser, told DNS: “The attack on disabled people isn’t anything new, it’s just more visible in the media now.”

She told DNS that the festival would “celebrate differences with immense pride and at the same time showcase disabled people as vibrant, contemporary, engaging and diverse members of society who add incredible value to everyone’s lives.”

She added: “The festival can instil confidence in young disabled people to know exciting careers are available to them, and if access such as audio descriptions and British Sign Language are used creatively this can add artistic integrity and educate everyone that communication is multi-layered.

“Just imagine if all schools in Liverpool had disability arts in the curriculum; it would be ground-breaking.”

Partington said she believed that the world of para-sport had caught up with the importance of the social model, disability culture and the history of the disabled people’s movement, and that younger disabled athletes now have “access to more informed information about how disabled people have been discriminated against and oppressed”.

Bev Ayre, the festival’s creative director, said: “The Inclusive Sport and Culture Festival is about creating something genuinely different.

“We’re bringing together outstanding artists, practitioners, accessibility specialists and advocates whose expertise and lived experience will help shape a cultural programme that is bold, ambitious and rooted in inclusion from the very beginning.”

She said the cultural advisory group would “bring artistic excellence, lived experience and an unwavering commitment to accessibility, ensuring disabled voices are not simply represented but are helping lead and shape the festival from the outset.

“The cultural programme will be every bit as ambitious as the sporting programme.

“By bringing together leaders from across disability arts and inclusive culture, we’re creating something that has the potential to influence how major events are designed and delivered long after the festival has ended.”

Picture: Tony Heaton (left) and Zoe Partington