New Plymouth's Festival of Lights boasts new audio tour

December 10, 2022

It's a sight to behold, and organisers have been working to make it accessible to those who can't. (Source: Seven Sharp)

Ever year New Plymouth's largest park is turned into a glowing wonderland, beckoning Santa from miles away. This year there'll be an audio tour for those with visual impairment.

Every year, thousands of people join together to experience the festival, "an experience of music and visual art and connection that brings magic into people's lives," as festival organiser Lisa Ekdahl puts it.

"This year we have an 'audio described tour', for people who have a visual impairment who have trouble negotiating paths and things like that.

"It’s a private tour," Lisa says.

Describers work from specially curated scrips, which combine the artist's notes with the describer's own response to the works.

The description puts together "all the different components, what it's made from, the sizes, all things like that, and we then try to create an image and a picture," says Helen Lindley, an audio describer.

"We have 50 bubble-like-balls on lake, as though someone has blown bubbles and they’ve landed there," a description reads.

For Lance Girling-Butcher, for whom glaucoma and corneal frosting means he can't see at all, the audio tour means allows him to enjoy a far more complete festival.

"Oh, it makes a total difference," he says.

"It turns a grey wall into, well, I can imagine these things floating ... from seeing nothing at all I have a mental picture now of them bobbing in the water with the ducks swimming among them."

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