As summer festival season heats up, Accessible Festivals is again helping people with disabilities get to their favorite music festivals, for free.
Applications are now open for the nonprofit’s seasonal Dan Grover Memorial Ticket Grant Program, which provides free access to entertainment outings, concerts, festivals, and conventions for individuals with disabilities and their loved ones. With each festival season, the organization, dedicated to improving accessibility in the live events industry, invites people with disabilities to apply for a pair of tickets to the festival of their choice from a selection of many of the country’s best music events.
After grant recipients went to Ultra Miami, Coachella, Beyond Wonderland SoCal, and Dreamville Festival this spring, Accessible Festivals’ summer and fall ticket grants for 2025 include passes to plenty of iconic electronic weekenders, including Beyond Wonderland (Chicago and at the Gorge), Day Trip Festival, III Points, and EDC Orlando.
Elsewhere on the list, legendary multi-genre festivals Lollapalooza and Austin City Limits offer bucket-list experiences, along with massive rock events like When We Were Young, Shaky Knees, Minnesota Yacht Club, and both the California and Florida legs of the recently revived Vans Warped Tour. Hopeful attendees can share their diagnosis, life story, and love for music in Accessible Festivals’ online grant application to be considered for the ticket grant.
The organization aims to fulfill applications for “individuals that particularly need something to look forward to and lack the resources to purchase a ticket,” and as such, “preference is given to individuals that have recently been injured or diagnosed with a disease, ailment, or disorder that results in a disability,” according to the application.
Launched in 2022, the ticket grant honors Dan Grover, who, undeterred by his diagnosis with Muscular Dystrophy at a young age, used his passion for music to become one of the first accessibility consultants in the live music industry, improving ADA operations at festivals like Electric Forest, Outside Lands, and more. Grover passed away in 2022.
Since Accessible Festivals was founded in 2014, the organization has headed up a movement to destigmatize disability and create equitable spaces in live entertainment through ADA consulting and inclusion initiatives at events nationwide. Its founder, Austin Whitney, is an ADA compliance director for Coachella, Stagecoach, the PGA Tour, and more.
Fans can apply for Accessible Festivals’ Dan Grover Memorial Ticket Grant Program here. For more information, visit accessiblefestivals.org.
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Featured image courtesy: Insomniac Events.