Hull Truck Theatre is a producing theatre and receiving theatre in the heart of Hull, telling powerful human stories that resonate with our city but have global relevance. Our venue is centrally located, just a five-minute walk from Hull’s transport interchange, providing easy access for people travelling via public transport.

We are committed to making the theatre as inclusive and accessible as possible for audiences, staff, and visitors. Hull Truck Theatre is about more than the shows we put on our stage; we believe everyone should be given the opportunity to access the arts to express creativity and to find connection and community.

Inclusion is one of the core values at Hull Truck Theatre and is embedded across everything we do – from strategic planning to day-to-day operations. This includes delivering accessible performances, investing in inclusive facilities and backstage infrastructure and adapting recruitment processes.

To ensure we continue to meet the evolving needs of everyone who uses our venue, we created a dynamic cross departmental internal Inclusion & Access Group (IAG), made up of people from different departments and with varying levels of seniority. The group meets quarterly to identify opportunities for improvement and champion positive changes, importantly ensuring that the organisation is held to account.

Recent improvements pioneered by the IAG include the installation of stoma friendly facilities and the inclusion of free incontinence and sanitary products in all toilets. In addition, automatic door operators backstage and lighting systems have been introduced to support deaf performers, and we have added of a new wheelchair space at the back of the Stage 1 auditorium, giving wheelchair users greater choice. New handrails have been installed to aid access up the stairs and an Assistance Animals policy has been created.

Members of our IAG also participate in the local Disability Arts Network (DAN) steering group to help shape conversations around art, culture and disability. The IAG are also involved in ITV Calendar’s Diversity Group as a critical friend, meeting quarterly to provide feedback on their approach to news stories regionally with inclusion in mind.

We successfully launched dedicated Baby Friendly performances for all Hull Truck Theatre main house productions, welcoming caregivers with babies up to 18 months old, whilst also strengthening our Relaxed Performance offer for those who require a slightly adapted theatre experience. Through enhanced staff training and the introduction of pre-show touch tables, fidget toys, bespoke signage and tailored welcomes we are helping more people to feel safe, welcome and relaxed in our spaces. As part of our Big Welcome policy, we have created bespoke Experience Guides for every Hull Truck Theatre production and a comprehensive Venue Welcome Guide, available in PDF and plain text formats, allowing audiences and creatives to plan their visit with confidence.

We offer Pay What You Can Performances (PWYC) and £5 community tickets for targeted groups in postcodes where there are particularly low levels of arts engagement. This helps to remove cost as a barrier to attendance.

We have become a Disability Confident Employer (Level 3) demonstrating our ongoing commitment to improving employment opportunities and support for disabled people and streamlined our interviewing and onboarding process accordingly. We now mentor other organisations who are on the Disability Confident journey. Earlier this year, we were awarded the Colleague Network Award at The Scope Awards 2026, recognising the IAG and its role in driving long-term disability inclusion and organisational change.

Last year, we were proud to become a Theatre of Sanctuary – the only theatre in East Yorkshire and the Humber to receive this accreditation in recognition. We celebrated during Refugee Week in June with a celebration event, human library and art exhibition which welcomed over 250+ people.

As part of a sector wide benchmarking exercise with Indigo Ltd using post-show surveys, our audiences rated us 4.5 out of 5 for meeting their accessibility needs, exceeding the sector benchmark score of 4.2.

The next priority is to increase Global Majority representation across creatives, audiences, governance, participants and work force. We are also developing a refreshed welcome pack for visiting companies, informed by evaluation and feedback, to support a more inclusive experience. We are keen to build on our Pride offer for 2027 and will also continue to engage with sanctuary seekers families who have made Hull their home.

The IAGs commitment to continually improving accessibility and our inclusion polices has had a significant positive impact on the lives of disabled and neurodivergent people by removing barriers and enabling more people to engage with theatre independently and with confidence.