Westfield Health offers stage support for hard of hearing

People with hearing difficulties will soon be able to enjoy performances at the Sheffield City Hall for the first time, thanks to a donation from Westfield Health.

The health insurance provider has donated £12,000 to purchase captioning equipment, which provides deaf or hard of hearing audiences with access to selected arts performances at the venue.

The equipment, which is provided by Stagetext, consists of a screen placed on either side of the stage in a position where it is possible for users to read the captions and still follow the actors on stage.

Sheffield Caption Support Group has been campaigning for the last 10 years for more venues to provide captioning equipment in performances. Philip Timms, Chairman of the Sheffield Caption Support Group, said: “Deafness or being hard of hearing brings a tremendous amount of isolation. Having access to arts venues and other activities can really alleviate this and make many people feel more positive, but it can be frustrating not being able to access performances that we want to see.

“That is why the donation from Westfield Health is so vital. As a group, we will now be able to watch a performance at the City Hall - something we have never been able to do. This helps give us a sense of inclusion in society and we are extremely grateful to them for this.”

It is estimated that there are approximately 80,000 deaf or hard of hearing people in Sheffield and the Caption Support Group, which is thought to be the only one of its kind in the country, works to make the arts more accessible to those people.

Andy Graham, Deputy General Manager at Sheffield City Hall, which is managed by Sheffield International Venues (SIV), said: “It is important for SIV that we make our performances accessible to as many people as possible, and the captioning equipment is a great example of how we can do this. We will also be working closely with tour promoters to encourage them to get on board so more of our performances will include this feature.

“We are extremely grateful to Westfield Health for their generous donation and we will continue to work with the Caption Support Group to give them help and support in any way we can.”