RISING continues to demonstrate leadership in accessible arts practice through its Access 2026 program, which is guided by the social model of disability and focuses on identifying and removing barriers to participation.
Across the 2026 program, audiences can access a wide range of supports, including:
- Auslan‑interpreted performances
- Captioned works
- Audio description and tactile tours
- Assistive listening and hearing loops
- Relaxed performances and sensory‑aware spaces
- Clear venue access information, including wheelchair access, accessible bathrooms and parking
- Companion Card acceptance and access bookings
These services are designed to support people to attend events in ways that suit their access needs, whether that relates to vision, hearing, mobility, sensory processing or fatigue.
Full details of access services and how to request support are available via the RISING website.
Programming that centres disability and access
RISING 2026 includes performances and experiences that feature artists with disability, disability‑led storytelling and works designed with access embedded from the outset. These programs align strongly with Vision Australia Radio’s mission to promote inclusive arts, representation and equal participation.
Vision Australia Radio will be shining a spotlight on events that exemplify best‑practice access, as well as works that place lived experience front and centre. Listeners can expect interviews and features that explore how accessibility is shaping contemporary arts practice, and why it matters.
Audio described sessions and other highlights at RISING 2026
RISING 2026 includes a number of audio described experiences designed to support blind and low vision audiences to engage with the program.
The Shepherds will feature an audio described performance on Sunday, June 7, at 2pm, with a tactile tour prior to the performance. Presented as part of the festival’s live performance program, this access offering supports audiences to explore the work’s physicality, staging and design through detailed description and touch before the show begins.
Learn more about The Shepherds and buy your tickets on the Rising website.
At ACMI, audiences can also take part in an Audio Described Tour of The Vinyl Factory: Reverb on Saturday, June 20, at 10.15am. This guided experience is led by Vision Australia audio describers and provides rich verbal interpretation of this major multi‑sensory exhibition.
Learn more about The Viny Factory and buy your tickets on the Rising website.
Day Tripper presented with triple R on Saturday, June 6, at 12pm: Expect psychic guerrilla poetry, a four-headed beast from Japan, a jazz icon from Chicago, the hottest band in Manhattan, local legends of hardcore and so much more. Kae Tempest, The Congos, Raven Chacon, Chanel Beads, Elias B Rønnenfelt, Kahil El’zabar, Discovery Zone, The Bats, SAICOBAB to name just a few of the larger line up.
Learn more about Day Tripper and buy your tickets on the Rising website.
Saul Williams Meets Carlos Niño & Friend, presented with Melbourne Recital Centre on Friday, June 5, at 8pm. Legendary Saul Williams’ powerful spoken word meets Carlos Niño and LA’s new guard of experimental jazz, for a live improvisational show. Carlos Niño is a percussionist, producer and composer whose work is rooted in collaboration. While Saul Williams leads the work through spoken word rather than song, using language as both resistance and invocation.
Together, Williams and Niño create a space that prioritises presence over performance. Expect hand percussion, gongs, chimes and cymbals move beneath breathy flutes, looping saxophone lines and soft electronic tones. This is not a traditional concert but a shared experience, asking for attention rather than applause. This event, although not audio descripted has a high audio score.
anaiis’ with bumpy, presented with Melbourne Recital Centre on Thursday, June 4, at 8pm. London-based French-Senegalese artist, anaiis, arrives with her silken voice and dynamic neo-soul. As a teenager, anaiis moved between France, Ireland, Dakar, and the United States, relearning languages and searching for a sense of belonging. With her music, she’s channelled her yearning in a globe-spanning sound that’s grounded in open-hearted empowerment and black feminism. On her latest album, Devotion and the Black Divine, she embraces grace, motherhood, and the work of nurturing her inner child. With a voice that can move from restrained falsetto to a deep, rich alto - she glides over reggae grooves, warm synth chords, dark orchestral swells. Gospel, R&B and chamber pop bend with experimental flourishes and subtle vocal glitches. Hear every honeyed syllable in the acoustically rich confines of the Melbourne Recital Centre for RISING. Supporting anaiis will be Bumpy, a Naarm-based Noongar soul artist with a tender, powerful voice. She builds shimmering mosaics of contemporary soul laced with folk, funk and jazz. This event, although not audio descripted has a high audio score.
Learn more about anaiis’ with bumpy and buy your tickets on the Rising website.
Cate Le Bon with Georgia Knight Wednesday, June 3, at 7:30pm. Welsh songwriter Cate Le Bon and her band arrive at Melbourne Town Hall with her surrealist pop mastery—groove-laden, liquid and lush. Art pop that’s like a smudged oil painting of last night’s dream. It’s off kilter but it’s vivid, “like sipping wine through a telescope”. Emerging from the freak folk energy of the late noughties, Cate Le Bon has refined and expanded her sound palette to the point where she’s the go-to producer for some of indie’s top tier raconteurs (Dry Cleaning, Wilco, St Vincent, Deerhunter). Her latest album Michelangelo Dying, which attracted an otherworldly duet from one of her all-time heroes, John Cale, takes the age-old theme of heartache up into heady textural plains of dream pop. Steady, melodic bass. Guitars flanged to the heavens. Horns that sway on oceans of reverb. Synth lines that puncture like the stars and swirl the dawn. Cate conjuring rich scenes of distance and closeness, of mirrored places and robed figures on freezing beaches. Melbourne-born songwriter Georgia Knight will be bringing the dark cinematic hooks from her latest release, Beanpole, in support. This event, although not audio descripted has a high audio score.
Learn more about Cate Le Bon with Georgia Knight and buy your tickets on the Rising website.
A shared commitment to inclusion
RISING’s return as a sponsor reflects a strong alignment between the festival and Vision Australia Radio’s role as an essential, accessible information service. Together, both organisations are helping ensure that arts and culture are not just available, but genuinely accessible to everyone.
To stay up to date with RISING 2026 coverage, listener information and upcoming interviews, keep listening to Vision Australia Radio or explore our podcasts and news online.
