About Us
What is Gig Buddies?
Gig Buddies Bristol enables people with learning disabilities and/or autistic people to enjoy all the great events going on in Bristol by pairing them up with new friends to attend events with. Volunteers can experience events they will love and make a huge difference to people’s lives at the same time.
Why is Gig Buddies important?
Accessibility at all kinds of art, music, culture and sports events shouldn’t be the goal, it should be the standard. Hopefully we can all agree how important these things are, and we should all be fighting the idea that access to them is a privilege that should only be afforded to some. We want to make events in Bristol more than accessible, we want to make them welcoming!
You can check out some of Gig Buddies Brighton’s success stories here.
No bosses! No masters! No bedtimes!
How does Gig Buddies work?
Each participant is matched to one volunteer. You then aim to meet your buddy once a month to attend a gig. Although we encourage buddies to attend music events primarily, we know there won’t always be a gig every month that you would both like to attend. In this instance we have buddies who attend theatre, comedy, sports matches or simply meet up to go on a walk.
Do I have to live in Bristol to take part?
We currently only match buddies who live in Bristol and the surrounding areas, however, there are also projects in Gloucestershire and Wales if you live closer to these areas. You can further information at the links below:
You can also find a full list of other Gig Buddies projects across the UK here:
Contact Gig Buddies Bristol
Any questions about Gig Buddies? You can contact us at admin@gigbuddiesbristol.com.
If you would like to talk on the phone, please send us your number and we will give you a call as soon as we’re able to!
Patrons
Adam ‘Dev’ Devonshire is the bass player from the band IDLES and is the first patron of Gig Buddies Bristol!
Gig Buddies first came to Dev’s attention through his partner’s auntie, who uses the Gig Buddies service in Wales to attend events. He was instrumental in organising a Gig Buddies Fundraiser which helped raise enough money to launch Gig Buddies in Bristol.
Dev has loads of experience of working on every side of events; as well as touring extensively with IDLES, he was also the manager at Exchange for several years, so he has a strong understanding of accessibility at shows and the difficulties and challenges that some people can face.
Dev’s support for us has been truly amazing and it’s difficult to imagine where this project would be without him, so we are incredibly proud to have him as our first patron!
