A few quiet beers after work on Friday masked the serious mission of finding out how well local watering holes catered for the needs of people with disability.
The Accessible Pub Crawl in Rockhampton brought together people with disability and workers from across the disability support sector to assess local venues for potential access pitfalls.
Organiser Des Ryan, who is on the board of Spinal Life Australia, has been running the event since the late 1980s.
He said they ran through common activities for a night out, like browsing the menu, ordering a drink, and going to the toilet, to see if the venue catered for people with different access needs.
"After we leave the hotel we rate them on the noise levels, the accessibility, the staff, toilet facilities and the difficulty of ordering a drink," Mr Ryan said.
"We work on the venue with the lowest rating first — there's only so much lobbying you can do and still do your day job, so generally we work on one at a time."
Access challenges of a life on wheels
Mr Ryan uses a wheelchair, and said sometimes just getting in the door could be a challenge.
"At the venue we're at now, there's a bit of a lip on the doorway," he said.
"Because these are old venues, when people do refurbishments they don't always think of what would make it that little bit better for everyone.
"And of course, people have to make a profit before they can do some of these things."
Mr Ryan said improving venue access was good for the venue's bottom line as well as the community, and sometimes pressed for change by pointing out to shareholders the difficulty potential customers were having accessing the business.
He said venues considering renovations should talk to a specialist access consultant before planning the work, to ensure changes were appropriate and cost effective.
"Sometimes it's not a great deal of money to get it done right, but asking the right person for the right advice is important."
Considering a diverse mix of needs
The Accessible Pub Crawl includes people with different kinds of disability, and Mr Ryan said it was important to remember access needed to take different forms and may not be obvious.
"The first time we did it we rated a certain hotel very highly, but the blind person who came along thought it was the worst," he said.
"We were shocked, but he said it was because it was so noisy, he was isolated the whole time he was there because he couldn't hear anything."
The event was also attended by people from local disability services and Queensland's Department of Communities.
"It's a good networking night for them," Mr Ryan said.
"Over the night, over four hotels, people mix with everyone, which is good.
"It's like musical chairs, with hotels."
