Beautiful new space. But... I went for a Mandy Har...

Beautiful new space. But... I went for a Mandy Harvey concert and when my husband called to see if there would be interpreters (the performer is deaf), the person on the phone had no idea and said "well we usually don't...". It wasn't until my husband said "but the performer is deaf so..." that the worker went to check. First off, any time you have accessibility features, advertise it! People won't go if you don't. Second, educate employees about access features so if people call, they're not immediately turned off by "idk but probably not".

When we arrived (for the concert with a deaf performer) they didn't have interpreters or other visual access. Instead people immediately started speaking to people entering. While there weren't many deaf attendees, this was a major turn off as I entered, especially given the "idk we probably won't have interpreters" my husband told me about from his phone conversation.

Then, the assistant director who welcomed the performer to the stage started talking before the interpreter was in place. This is always a bad practice but an even more egregious issue when the performer is deaf!

Educate employees and be sensitive to access needs and you'll get a lot more people willing to go to your theatre.