BY YUEMENG WANG

Imagine you have purchased tickets to a concert by your favourite music artist - a singer you've grown up loving. 

You were excited, you got the flights organised, and you've got the accommodation booked.

But less than a week before the show, you get a call from the box office.

The show isn't cancelled, but your seat has been removed from the venue, and they can't give you a reason. 

Would you expect this to happen to you?

What if I change a part of the story? Let's say instead of your seat being removed, it is the interpreting services that got cancelled. 

For people in the Deaf community, this is not a rare or shocking occurrence. 

This kind of situation happens to them all the time.

Auslan interpreter and film industry freelancer Mish Graham shared with MOJO News her experience witnessing the Deaf community being excluded by the entertainment industry.

Ms Graham was planning on attending a Jimmy Barnes concert alongside people from the Deaf community.

She purchased tickets to be seated in the designated part of the venue for those who are deaf. These are expensive tickets typically situated close to the stage.

Although one week before the show, she was told that interpreting was cancelled for every Jimmy Barnes show in every state.

Ms Graham felt wronged. 

"Please don't tell me that you're going to be calling deaf people to tell them that they're not going to be attending this show," she said to the ticket employee who contacted her.

 "It's not the way to go; I was devastated."

It's not just attendees of live concerts that face this kind of ableism from the arts industry. 

Excited to participate in the first offline Melbourne international film festival (MIFF), Yiming Lin eagerly put his hand up to work as an inclusion volunteer.

Lin was rostered to work nine shifts and spent almost 50 hours in venues across the festival. 

Lin had been nervous about whether he would use the wrong language by accident and cause disabled patrons to feel uncomfortable during the film festival. 

Instead, to Lin's surprise, it was not a necessary worry, as "no one from disability communities shows up". 

Ms Graham, who also worked as an inclusion volunteer, went to a few Auslan sessions and discovered no other deaf people were there. 

Why are deaf people not attending events?

The 2016 census recorded 3,130 Auslan users living in Victoria, and 11,885 people in Australia use Auslan at home.

Ms Graham believes this results from the historic exclusion - such as what she experienced for the Jimmy Barnes concert - that leaves disabled people out of events and entertainment and not wanting to go even if access services are provided.

"This is a group of people that have been marginalised and oppressed by hearing people for so long," Ms Graham said. 

"You can have the language of access and inclusion. But the practical response to that doesn't look like the language," she added.

One person working to change this is the Access Officer of the Melbourne International Film Festival, Melbourne-based Access and Inclusion Consultant Tom Middleditch. 

Mr Middleditch was not surprised by the lack of turnout to MIFF and said more work needed to be done to ensure accessibility. 

"A lot of the communities have been burned before, they've gone out, [and] their needs have not been seen," Mr Middleditch said.

"And they have lost faith that they will be able to navigate that space," he said. 

Why do access and inclusion matter in artistic environments？

Alongside his consultancy business, Middleditch is an Autism/ADHD artist. He believes that there is value in the role of disabled people interacting with the arts industry. 

He said more disabled people should feel empowered to be a part of the arts and entertainment industries.

"Because an artistic society is one in which we are able to imagine something new," he said.

"There is a tendency to only go to those things that have worked before (and in doing that we) missed the people whose lives do not follow those patterns and will never follow those patterns to begin with."

He suggests that the lack of turnout at MIFF goes back to a history of laziness in ensuring accessibility for all people. 

Mr Middleditch said because arts and entertainment are not considered life essentials, representation is not front-of-mind for the industry.

Within arts, entertainment, leisure, and culture, "these are all the things that we do when all of our other things are seen to."

"You have essential medical services, which are obviously needed to keep you alive; that's pretty good," he said. 

"Then you've got these extracurricular items: entertainment, lifestyle choices. They're not necessary to keep you alive, but, my God, don't they make living worthwhile?"

The importance of access and inclusion for Mr Middleditch is about "giving people the dignity of choice, to be able to get access to as many elements of culture as [able-bodied people] are able to".

He has worked with many of Melbourne's leading arts organisations to ensure just that. Including RISING, Malthouse, Melbourne Fringe, Melbourne Comedy Festival, MIFF, Midsumma, and the Arts House.

It doesn't matter to him how many people those access programs can attract in one event.

"You build trust over time," he said.

Mr Middleditch understands that for an access program to be successful, it can't just be a one-off thing.

"It needs to be continually growing and continually having a presence in this space where eventually people [from disabled communities] can see these services are delivered and delivered well."