Awards Equity 2-Year Plan

PROJECT DESCRIPTION:

The Hollywood Fringe Festival, in concert with the HFF ACCESS Committee, will develop a 2-year plan to increase accessibility, equity, and inclusion at the Hollywood Fringe Festival Awards Ceremony, including physical and mental disability access, interpretation services, equitable nomination processes, and to provide clear ideas of what the festival can and cannot provide as a non-curated, primarily volunteer-run festival.

OUTLINE OF GOALS:

Year 1, 2021

• Develop an infrastructure to make it clear to participants and audiences what services are available & where
• Event needs
  - Event live interpretation (ASL)
  - Slides: In English & Spanish
  - Docx Slides & program with list of nominees
  - Flashing lights (Ask venues/light technicians to monitor)
• Language on how to think about equity while voting on the community awards in sponsored award language and community award language
• An agreement for award sponsors
• Create some kind of checks and balances for sponsored awards that reserve tickets and don’t show up to see the show
• Make the voting process is updated, so people aren’t voting on categories they haven’t seen
• Sponsored awards
• Make a committee size requirement of 3+
• Request that a percentage of committee members  must be from outside the award presenter’s organization
  - Committee size of 3-5 members is at least 1 person from outside the organization
  - Committee size of 6-10 members is at least 2 people from outside the organization
  - Committee size of 10+ members is at least 20% of the committee is from outside the organization (round to the nearest whole number)
• Sponsored award application must have a committee plan for equitable representation on their committee
• Sponsored awards cannot give an award to someone within their own company and organization
• Examine current sponsored awards requirements
• In the Partnership agreement for sponsored awards, lay out some best practices in requesting comps
• A video explaining how voting works
  - Script for the video should include our equity statement
• Sponsored award feedback collected via Google form during the process

Year 2, 2022

• Develop an infrastructure to make it clear to participants and audiences what services are available & where
• Develop an awards equity committee to set recommendations for the next two years (this plan will be continuously reviewed and updated, it’s not just a two-year process)
• Event needs
  - Event live interpretation (ASL and Spanish)
  - Program: provide visual description & Spanish language interpretation
  - Slides: In English & Spanish
  - Docx Slides with list of nominees
  - Flashing lights (ask venues/light technicians to monitor)
• A “for your consideration” page that is available to Fringe producers to use to promote their work
• An access committee sponsored award
• An award for venues doing the work of presenting diverse shows