The running order says the chairman hands over the award and the winner comes up to collect it. Nobody has asked how the winner gets up there. Accessible event staging is easy to leave until the deck is already ordered, and it belongs at the start, because the answer changes the deck height and the floor plan.
In short
- A raised stage is a physical element, and the Equality Act 2010 asks a service provider to take reasonable steps to avoid the disadvantage that creates.
- The Building Regulations guidance carries the gradients: one ramp flight may climb no more than 500mm, and at the shallowest gradient in its table that flight is 10 metres long.
- The Act’s ways of avoiding the disadvantage include providing a reasonable means of avoiding it, which can mean not raising the speaker at all.
- A ramp that climbs more than 300mm does not replace the steps. The guidance asks for both.
Accessible event staging starts with the deck height
Everything follows from one number. A ramp climbs whatever the stage is, so at a given gradient the height of the deck, the raised platform itself, sets the length of the ramp. Choose a taller deck for the sightlines and you have chosen a longer ramp at the same time, whether or not anyone wrote that down. We have written separately about how high a stage needs to be and how sightlines are decided, and access belongs in that conversation rather than after it.
What the gradient does to your floor plan
Approved Document M, the guidance supporting Part M of the Building Regulations, sets out what a ramp in a building should do. Its table pairs a gradient with a maximum going, the horizontal length of one ramp flight, and a maximum rise, the height that flight climbs.
- 1 in 20, meaning one unit of climb for every twenty of length: a going of up to 10 metres, climbing at most 500mm.
- 1 in 15: a going of up to 5 metres, climbing at most 333mm.
- 1 in 12: a going of up to 2 metres, climbing at most 166mm.
Read it the other way round and the floor plan problem appears. Clause 1.26 says no flight may have a going greater than 10 metres or a rise of more than 500mm. So 500mm is the most one flight may climb, and taking that at the shallowest gradient means a flight 10 metres long, plus a landing, a level resting area, of at least 1.2 metres at its foot. That is over 11 metres of clear floor in front of the stage. Above a 500mm rise you are into two flights with an intermediate landing of at least 1.5 metres between them, which is longer again.
That run comes out of tables or seats on a full floor plan. The same clause asks for a handrail on both sides, a surface width of at least 1.5 metres between walls, upstands or kerbs, and a kerb, a raised lip along the open edge, of at least 100mm.
A ramp that climbs more than 300mm does not replace the steps
Approved Document M asks that where the rise of a ramp is greater than 300mm, clearly sign-posted steps are provided in addition. Not instead.
Our view is that both earn their place, because a long shallow ramp and a short climb with a handrail do not suit the same person. Specify one and delete the other and you have taken access away from somebody.
The Building Regulations are a benchmark, not the duty
Approved Document M applies to permanent building work under the Building Regulations 2010. It does not govern a modular deck that goes up and comes down inside a week, and the document says in its own text that following it does not necessarily amount to meeting the duties in the Equality Act 2010.
Section 20 of the Act sets out the duty to make reasonable adjustments, and its second requirement is the one that bites here: where a physical feature puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage compared with people who are not disabled, the duty is to take such steps as it is reasonable to have to take to avoid the disadvantage. The Act’s definition of a physical feature reaches fixtures, furniture and any other physical element or quality. On our reading, a stage you can only reach by climbing is a physical element. Where your event is a service provided to the public or a section of the public, that duty applies to the service provider, and which party that is on your event is a question for your own contracts.
Then read what section 20 counts as avoiding the disadvantage. It includes removing the physical feature, altering it, or providing a reasonable means of avoiding it. In a room that cannot take a ramp of that length, the practical version of the last of those is to put the presentation at floor level rather than on a deck. That is a decision for the plan, not something to discover on the night.
Getting onto the stage is not the end of it
A post on the Government Digital Service’s accessibility blog makes two points that belong in a stage specification. It says any staging may need to be wheelchair accessible, and that any steps may need rails. It adds that lecterns and microphone stands should ideally be height-adjustable, and that changing them should be easy, because the adjustment may need to happen between one speaker and the next.
That is a short conversation with your audio visual (AV) supplier, and it is the difference between reaching the stage and being able to use it.
What to settle before you order the deck
Our position on specifying anything is that understanding the event comes before the kit, because kit chosen without it is the wrong kit. These questions belong with everything else your supplier needs from you.
- Who has to get onto the stage, including award winners and anyone invited up from the audience.
- Where a ramp of the length that height needs could go, marked on the floor plan rather than assumed.
- Whether steps and a ramp both fit, given the rise.
- Who is lighting the ramp and the steps, and whether that sits in the lighting plan.
- What the alternative is if the room will not take a ramp of that length.
An event where nobody can answer the last one has not made a decision about access.
Frequently asked questions
Do we need a ramp if nobody has asked for one?
Settle the question before anyone asks. The duty in section 20 turns on whether a physical feature puts a disabled person at a substantial disadvantage, and nothing in that wording depends on somebody raising it with the service provider first. What the Act asks for is reasonable steps rather than a ramp specifically, so the thing to decide early is which of those steps works in your room.
What if there is no floor for a ramp?
Change the arrangement rather than the equipment. Section 20’s list of ways to avoid the disadvantage includes removing the physical feature and providing a reasonable means of avoiding it, as well as altering it. A lower deck, or presenting at floor level with the microphone brought to the person, are both real answers. Tell us the room and the running order and we will say which of them works in that space.
Sources
- GOV.UK · Approved Document M, access to and use of buildings, volume 2
- legislation.gov.uk · Equality Act 2010, section 20
- legislation.gov.uk · Equality Act 2010, section 29
- Government Digital Service · Advice for making events and presentations accessible
If somebody has to get onto a stage at your event and the floor plan is tight, we are happy to work through the deck height and where a ramp could go before anything is ordered. We supply staging alongside audio, lighting and rigging from one source and deliver nationwide from Manchester. You can reach us through the contact page or by email at hire@eventproductiongroup.co.uk, and if the honest answer for your room is a lower stage rather than a longer ramp, we will tell you that.
