Successful AEME Panel at the AGF Green Events Innovation conference

​The AEME Sustainability SIG was very pleased and honoured  to once again to host a sustainability panel at the prestigious GEI 17 the Green Events & Innovations Conference and A Greener Future on Feb 25th.

Moderated by AEME chair Adrian Bossey and featuring Dr Mary Beth Gouthro and Naheed Akhtar, research from AEME members Cardiff Metropolitan University, the Bournemouth University Business School and University of West of Scotland and their Centre for Culture, Sport and Events CCSE was profiled on the panel 'Social Sustainability of EDI in Festivals: Challenge or Opportunity?'

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Photo credit: Shotaway, 2025

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With a focus on issues around EDI, festival research undertaken by Dr Karen Davies, Dr Nic Matthews and Dr Vicky Richards from Cardiff Metropolitan University and Dr Mary Beth Gouthro from Bournemouth University explored the issue of inclusivity and access to music festivals for people living in poverty and low incomes within a context of rising ticket prices and increasing commercialisation of music festivals.  Action research undertaken in phases studied the problem of rising ticket prices, input from festival stakeholders and poverty specialists, and workshops with festival organisers revealed a new awareness of the growing issue.  Follow on plans to build on existing and burgeoning support programmes to support those on low incomes and suit the ethos of festival stakeholders were explored.  

 

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Photo credit: Shotaway, 2025

Naheed Akhtar from the University of the West of Scotland CCSE showed how events have the transformative potential to create inclusive spaces, amplify marginalised voices, and foster intercultural understanding. Policy makers, funding organizations and organizers of the event need to be 'in the room' when it comes to planning, designing and delivering events.  Valuable EDI outcomes will only flow from carefully considered articulation of purpose, vision, organisation and reflection.  See the CCSE playbook here for reference.  Festival programming, its accessibility measures, and community involvement strategies can all contribute to meaningful EDI outcomes.

 

Adrian Bossey also provided an update to the Live Audience Accessibility & Augmentation (‘LAAA’) Project(s), a collaboration between Falmouth University researchers and AEME colleagues from the University of Brighton. Working with the d/Deaf community to make music festivals more inclusive, LAAA installed a haptic dance floor at Falmouth University, before undertaking field tests of haptic vests at two music festivals in 2023 and BEAT BLOCKS haptic flooring at three music festivals in 2024. Working with multiple partners, field tests into audience perceptions of both haptics and liveness revealed positive outcomes from haptic ICT for audiences who are d/Deaf, disabled or neurodivergent.

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Photo credit: Shotaway, 2025

The panel follows on from our successful AEME panels at GEI16, which featured panel members Andrew Lansley from the University of Gloucestershire, Dimitri Lera from University of Essex and Dr Jane Lovell from Canterbury Christ Church University. As well as at GEI15, featuring Professor Jane Ali-Knight of Edinburgh Napier University, Clare Mackay and Briony Whitaker from University of West of England and Daniel Baxter of Glasgow Caledonian University.

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Photo credit: Shotaway, 2025