A major digital accessibility deadline is approaching in the United States, and it could affect many venues, live event organizations and ticketing vendors.
In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) published a new rule under Title II of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that establishes clear technical standards for web and digital accessibility.
Betty Siegel
The first compliance deadline arrives April 24, 2026, when state and local government entities serving populations of more than 50,000 must ensure their websites, mobile apps and digital services meet the Web Content Accessibility Guidelines (WCAG) 2.1 Level AA standard. Smaller entities have until April 26, 2027, to meet the same requirements.
At first glance, the rule may not seem related to ticketing. But as accessibility expert Betty Siegel explained during an INTIX 2026 session in Las Vegas, the scope is much broader, and the live events industry must take note.
Specifically, the regulations apply to all state and local government entities, including their agencies, divisions or departments, as well as services operated or venues owned by government. This includes theaters, museums, community colleges, public universities, sports and recreation programs, and public parks. The rules also apply to vendors hired to provide services on their behalf, such as a non-profit running a county theater summer camp or an organization operating a stadium for a city.
“There is a difference between the little theatre company that is doing its own thing and just happens to rent a space [at a venue], and the contractor the city goes out and hires,” Siegel said.
The ADA itself is not new. Signed into law on July 26, 1990, the comprehensive civil rights legislation prohibits discrimination on the basis of disability across several areas, including employment, public accommodations and commercial facilities. Title II of the ADA regulates state and local government programs and services, requiring equal access for people with disabilities.
The new DOJ rule does not create an entirely new obligation. It clarifies how existing accessibility requirements apply to today’s digital environments, and it makes compliance measurable. It will also help reduce the risk of lawsuits and give staff, guests and audiences greater confidence.
Developed by the World Wide Web Consortium, WCAG provides detailed guidance for making digital content accessible. It covers requirements such as alternative text descriptions for images, captions for videos, accessible forms, keyboard navigation and audio descriptions.
“One of the important things in the world of accessibility in digital or web spaces is that the infrastructure can support technology like a screen reader. The screen reader reads the information embedded in the website, but it does so in the way the site is designed. One example is a link on your website. If you haven’t designed that link properly, when a person who is blind scrolls over it, it will say, ‘Click here, click here, click here.’ It doesn’t know what it’s clicking on. If you have an image, and you scroll over it, it’ll say ‘image.’ What is it an image of?”
Siegel continued, “There are a lot of ways that digital spaces can be designed to be exclusive of a population that usually uses a particular type of assistive technology. Sometimes the infrastructure is designed in such a way that the logic jumps around in a way that you don’t intend, that you don’t get when you are reading it visually. What can happen is the person gets frustrated and gives up … They want to purchase something from you, but they get partway through the process, and their technology does not work, they can’t figure out what’s going on because the site is not designed properly, and they abandon the transaction because they have basically hit a wall.”
Digital Accessibility Is a Shared Responsibility
One of the most important points for the ticketing industry is how the new DOJ rule treats third-party vendors, as many public venues rely on outside companies to design websites, manage ticketing systems or operate mobile apps. But outsourcing digital work does not remove the responsibility for accessibility. If a vendor creates or maintains digital content for a public entity, that content must still meet the appropriate WCAG standards.
“If a city web page lists the addresses and hours of operation for all city cultural events, that web page must meet WCAG 2.1 Level AA even if a local web design company made the web page and updates it for the city,” Siegel explained in her presentation materials. “Even if the public entity outsources accessibility work to somebody else … the public entity is still responsible.”
Why Accessibility Matters to the Ticketing Industry
While legal compliance is one driver, accessibility is also a major business opportunity. Globally, more than 1.2 billion people live with disabilities, representing roughly 20% of the world’s population. In the United States alone, 61 million adults over age 18, approximately 26% of the population, identify as having a disability. The percentages are similar in Canada, the United Kingdom and other countries. This makes people with disabilities the largest minority group in the world. It is also one that anyone could join at any time. “People with disabilities are not a small market,” Siegel emphasized.
In fact, when friends, family members and allies are included, the disability community represents an estimated $13 trillion in global spending power. For venues and event organizers, accessibility can influence not only individual ticket purchases but entire groups. Siegel illustrated the point with a story about her mother.
“My mom is 99 years old right now. She sees more theatre than I do, but she doesn’t go by herself. Why? Theatre is a social event. She goes with friends, nieces and nephews, grandchildren and people from her synagogue. Most people don’t go to the types of events that we hold by themselves. When my mom buys a ticket, it is not one ticket. It is two, three or four tickets.”
Siegel continued, “If you have created an environment and an experience that my mom can participate in, whether it is digital or live, then she continues to come, and you sell that one ticket, but she’s buying five tickets. And you continue selling five tickets. So, you take that 26% of the U.S. population, amplify it by however many friends and family each person has, and suddenly you are at a huge number.”
Despite the size of the market, many digital platforms remain difficult for people with disabilities to use. Research cited in Siegel’s presentation highlights the scale of the challenge: studies have found that two-thirds of online transactions initiated by people with vision loss are abandoned due to accessibility barriers, and 90% say inaccessibility forces them to call customer service or use a different website. “If it's too frustrating and too difficult to do, they just stop and go look for someplace that is friendly and accessible, and when [they] find those entities, they are hugely loyal,” Siegel said.
Common accessibility failures include missing image descriptions, poorly labeled buttons and websites that cannot be navigated using keyboards or assistive technology. In some cases, these barriers prevent users from completing ticket purchases online.
During her presentation, Siegel emphasized that organizations should not panic about the DOJ update. In many ways, the rule reinforces expectations that have long existed under the ADA. “This rule will provide state and local governments with more clarity about what they have to do to comply with the ADA and will ultimately reduce the risk of litigation,” she noted.
The new regulation also focuses primarily on future content, rather than forcing organizations to fix decades of archived material. Instead, the rule allows certain limited exceptions, particularly for materials created before the compliance date. These may include archived web content, pre-existing electronic documents and social media posts, as well as certain third-party content not posted under a contractual relationship with the public entity. The approach allows organizations to focus on ensuring that new digital content meets accessibility standards.
For ticketing professionals and venue operators, this aligns closely with how digital systems already evolve. Websites, purchase journeys and event listings are constantly being updated, which means accessibility can be built into everyday workflows.
Siegel stressed that accessibility should not be treated as a one-time project handled solely by a technical team. Instead, it should become part of an organization's daily practices.
“Every day, [organizations may be] changing out media. Rather than going back and checking it, you want to say to everybody, ‘If you post a picture anywhere, have an alt tag on it.’ That’s everybody’s responsibility … The protocol [to put in place] is that everybody who has anything to do with that website has the obligation to ensure that their piece of it is accessible.”
Building accessibility into organizational culture requires collaboration across departments. Digital accessibility impacts everything from ticket office staff managing online sales to marketing teams uploading promotional content to drive sales.
“You want to vet your vendors and contractors really well. Don’t just take them at their word. You want them to show you what they have done and have people go in and look at what they have designed. Anyone who will have input into that website in the long run needs to be involved in accessibility planning. You may have a designer design the website, and then they go away. Now your internal people have to maintain it. They need to know what WCAG is and how to modify and maintain the website so its accessibility features are maintained.”
Siegel continued, “If your marketing people are putting up videos about shows, they need to know that their videos have to be captioned. You want legal to know that your contracts should have language in there that says, ‘if you want to work with the state and local government, provide these services,’ then in that contract, you want the language that holds them accountable to compliance with these standards. Your ticket office people should be involved. They have a really good idea of how people use websites and buy tickets. Their input should be factored in because they will be dealing with it on a day-to-day basis. So, I like having just about everybody involved.”
Another critical component is involving people with disabilities. Too often, organizations attempt to imagine how accessibility features might work without consulting the people who rely on them most. “Get knowledgeable user experts, people with disabilities from a variety of different disability communities, to come in and work alongside you in the development of the website. If you have a person who is blind sitting with your web designer, and they are testing as that designer is writing code, and they’re saying, “My screen reader can’t read that,” you will catch a lot of mistakes … If you don’t have a disability, you really can’t pretend your way, or imagine your way, into their everyday life experience.”
For smaller organizations with limited resources, the path forward may seem daunting. But Siegel said accessibility improvements do not require perfection overnight. “What you really need to do, even as a small organization, is at least sit down, breathe three times and develop a plan,” she said.
That plan should start with understanding legal obligations, identifying accessibility gaps and prioritizing improvements. “You can't do everything all at once,” she said, “but you can work toward it.”
Accessibility also delivers benefits beyond compliance. Organizations that invest in accessible digital platforms often see increased customer loyalty and stronger relationships with audiences. People with disabilities frequently share both positive and negative experiences within their communities. “They will go on social media and tell everybody how they tried to buy a ticket at such-and-such a place, and it was a horrible experience,” Siegel said. “When they have a good experience, they do the same thing, thinking, ‘Let me tell everybody. These folks are great.’”
Ultimately, accessibility is about ensuring that everyone can fully participate in the arts, culture and entertainment. It is also about recognizing the value of audiences that have historically been overlooked or excluded.
For Siegel, the underlying question is simple: “Why would you not want to be accessible?”
Editor’s Note: Explore the topic further and access resources in Siegel’s full INTIX presentation.
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