For decades, event managers relied on a shared, largely unspoken understanding of what made a music festival feel “live.” Artist performance, artist–audience interaction, physical co-presence, amplified sound and crowd energy were assumed to deliver authenticity almost by default. That assumption no longer holds.

As performances become increasingly augmented by digital technologies—screens, devices, haptics, subtitles—liveness becomes unevenly distributed across audiences. What feels immersive and authentic to one group may feel distant or artificial to another. Crucially, this variation is not random; it is patterned by access needs, familiarity with technology, and prior experience of live music.

The key implication is that liveness can no longer be treated as a background condition. It is a design variable. Yet most festivals lack mechanisms to assess how different audiences actually experience augmented performances. Decisions are therefore made reactively or symbolically, rather than on evidence of what sustains or enhances the live experience.

A liveness scale addresses this gap by translating an abstract concept into something observable and comparable. It enables organisers to move from assumptions (“this should feel live”) to insight (“this feels live to these audiences, under these conditions”). In doing so, it reframes liveness as a measurable dimension of experience rather than a nostalgic ideal that resists technological change.

Accessible ICT is often evaluated in binary terms: does it work or not? Does it technically deliver subtitles, vibrations, interpretation, or description? However, field evidence suggests this framing is insufficient. Audiences respond not only to whether an augmentation functions, but to whether it preserves the sense of a shared, unfolding event.

Some technologies—particularly haptic systems that translate sound into bodily sensation—were consistently perceived as enhancing authenticity. Participants described these interventions as deepening their connection to the performance rather than mediating it away. In contrast, less familiar or poorly contextualised technologies generated uncertainty, even when their functional benefits were clear.

This distinction matters because adoption depends on more than provision. An augmentation that technically improves access but is perceived as distancing, distracting, or “not really live” is unlikely to be embraced. Over time, this can reinforce scepticism about accessibility initiatives more broadly.

The liveness scale makes this dynamic visible. By capturing how different augmentations are experienced relative to one another, it allows organisers to prioritise investments that align inclusion with authenticity. In practical terms, it helps answer a critical question: which technologies feel like extensions of the live event, and which feel like substitutes for it?

One of the most consequential findings from the scale development process was not about technology at all, but about communication. Early iterations revealed that academic language, abstract phrasing, and complex sentence structures actively undermined accessibility—particularly in noisy, cognitively demanding festival environments.

Terms such as “extent,” “augmentation,” or “on-site perspective” created friction for respondents. In contrast, plain English phrasing—short, concrete, familiar—improved comprehension and response quality. Similarly, the introduction of visual and symbolic prompts reduced cognitive load and supported more inclusive participation.

These insights matter because perception of liveness begins before the performance itself. If audiences struggle to understand how an experience is framed, described, or evaluated, the technology risks being perceived as alienating regardless of its sensory impact.

The scale’s iterative co-design process demonstrates that accessible innovation is as much about how questions are asked as which technologies are deployed. For practitioners, the lesson is clear: inclusive design must extend beyond infrastructure to encompass language, signage, interfaces, and evaluation tools. Liveness is shaped not only by what audiences experience, but by how they are invited to make sense of it.

Audience perceptions of liveness are highly contextual. They vary by genre, performance format, venue layout, audience composition, and prior exposure to technology. A haptic intervention that feels immersive at one festival may feel intrusive or irrelevant at another. Similarly, subtitles or screen-based mediation may enhance liveness for some audiences while diminishing it for others.

This variability explains why general event experience scales struggle to capture meaningful differences in augmented contexts. They aggregate experiences that are, in practice, highly specific. The liveness scale advances understanding by anchoring measurement to particular technologies and on-site conditions.

Rather than producing universal rankings of “most live” or “least live” technologies, the scale supports comparative learning across contexts. Over time, data collected across multiple festivals, genres, and audience groups can reveal patterns—what works where, for whom, and why.

For organisers, this shifts decision-making from imitation to contextual strategy. Instead of copying innovations from other festivals, they can test and refine augmentations in relation to their own audiences. Liveness, in this sense, becomes locally produced rather than globally prescribed.

Accessibility in live events is often framed through compliance: meeting minimum standards, satisfying licensing conditions, or responding to complaints. While necessary, this approach risks positioning accessibility as a constraint rather than an opportunity for innovation.

The liveness scale supports a different trajectory. By validating the experiences and perceptions of d/Deaf, disabled, and neurodivergent audiences, it provides evidence that can inform proactive design, investment, and policy decisions. It creates a feedback loop in which audience insight shapes future provision.

At an organisational level, this enables accessibility to be embedded into planning cycles, supplier tenders, and post-event evaluation. At a sector level, aggregated findings can inform funding priorities, industry guidance, and regulatory frameworks that emphasise quality of experience rather than minimal provision.

Perhaps most importantly, measuring liveness acknowledges that inclusion is not simply about access to space, but access to meaning. When audiences feel that an augmented performance is genuinely live, they are more likely to feel a sense of belonging, connection, and cultural participation.

In this way, the scale reframes accessibility from an ethical obligation into a source of experiential value—one that strengthens festivals as inclusive, adaptive, and future-facing cultural institutions.