{"id":779836,"date":"2026-09-23T09:44:13","date_gmt":"2026-09-23T09:44:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779836\/"},"modified":"2026-09-23T09:44:13","modified_gmt":"2026-09-23T09:44:13","slug":"disabled-artists-say-barriers-remain-despite-bristols-inclusive-reputation","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/779836\/","title":{"rendered":"Disabled artists say barriers remain despite Bristol’s inclusive reputation"},"content":{"rendered":"

Jess Douek, the lead singer of alternative metal band Mallavora, lives with chronic pain caused by fibromyalgia.<\/p>\n

“Being a touring musician, everyone is stood up all the time, on stage, travelling long hours; the culture is roughing it – I realised early on that just wasn’t going to be possible for me,” she said.<\/p>\n

“I wasn’t prepared to give up on music so wanted to find a way of doing things differently so I could forge a career for myself.”<\/p>\n

Her band designed a way of touring that works for them, by hiring help and playing accessible venues that are welcoming to their disabled fans.<\/p>\n

Douek said her band broke the record for the number of wheelchairs at a fully-accessible gig at the Exchange in May.<\/a><\/p>\n

She said there are “amazing accessible venues in Bristol, but it’s quite inconsistent”.<\/p>\n

She has secured Arts Council funding and partnered with the Exchange to create Bristol’s first fully-accessible grassroots music venue to showcase emerging bands in a smaller space. <\/p>\n

“I’m conscious that emerging disabled artists are locked out of that rite of passage,” she said.<\/p>\n

Quarterly gigs, networking events and a talent pathway with festivals and booking agencies will launch in early 2027. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Jess Douek, the lead singer of alternative metal band Mallavora, lives with chronic pain caused by fibromyalgia. “Being…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":779837,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[6225,6485,6486,1120,96,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-779836","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-design","tag-entertainment","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779836","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=779836"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/779836\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/779837"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=779836"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=779836"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=779836"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}