Open captioning is a text display of words and sounds heard during a performance or event. The display is positioned so that it's visible to individuals in a particular seating area. It is considered passive assistance, a service that is there to use or ignore.
Who is it for?
Open captioning is a service for people with hearing loss who use assistive listening devices, hearing aids, cochlear implants, sign language or lip read. It provides the broadest access to people who are hard of hearing or deaf. Approximately 20% or 48 million Americans have hearing loss as per the Hearing Loss Association of America. Roughly 1% of this demographic uses American Sign Language as cited in Psychology Today's 2023 article "Not Everyone With Hearing Loss Knows Sign Language."
How can my venue offer it?
For do-it-yourself open captioning, you can use PowerPoint slides, a projector and drop-down screen visible to people with hearing loss in a designated seating area.
For open captioning provided by an independent, professional caption operator who will do all the prep work and bring state-of-the-art equipment, TDF’s longtime service provider for live theatre performances is c2.
Contact: David Chu, davidchu.2@gmail.com, (917) 733-3515
c2 pioneered and introduced live theatrical captioning for patrons with hearing loss and is responsible for launching theatre captioning programs around the country. The company has collaborated with theatres nationwide, providing live on-site captioning, digital captioning and subtitled captioning. Work includes live open captioning on Broadway, Off Broadway, national performing arts venues and touring houses, and top-shelf regional theatres. c2 remains dedicated to maintaining the artistic integrity and authentic experience of live theatre, ensuring that all audience members can enjoy the performance equally.
How can my venue offer unscripted open captioning?
Communication Access Realtime Translation (CART), also called open captioning, live captioning or real-time captioning, is the general name of the system that court reporters, steno captioners, voice writers and others use to convert speech to text. The text appears in real time, while the words or speakers are heard, on a big screen that everyone can see. CART can also be displayed on a laptop or a mobile device. TDF uses TotalCaption for unscripted events.
Contact: Lauren Schechter, lauren@totalcaption.com, (201) 301-2435, TotalCaption.com
How else can my venue support patrons with hearing loss?
If possible, providing an assistive listening device (ALD) in conjunction with open captioning is optimal. Levels of hearing loss vary, and any opportunity to take in sound is important. Require an advance reservation for assistive listening units to ensure you have enough on hand. Tickets should be available for purchase online. For in-person ticket sales, a hearing loop system is recommended for the customer service area as well as the event seating area.
Open captioning service fees*
• Independent contractor captioning for one performance (script formatting, previewing, synchronized text scrolling with display): $1,500- $2,000
• Independent contractor captioning for second performance of the same production: $1,000-$2,000
* = pricing is approximate and subject to change.
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