Areas We Serve · Chicago
Access that appears on the listing beside the date, rather than being arranged quietly after somebody has had to ask for it.
The date on the listing, not the date in the diary
Most of the Chicago settings on this page are open to anyone who buys a ticket or walks in off Michigan Avenue. A pier, a park stage, a downtown theatre, a ballpark and a summer festival ground have no way of knowing in advance which of the people coming through the gate is Deaf, blind, or following the programme in a language other than English. Nobody introduces themselves at the door.
Which makes the first Chicago question a publishing one rather than a staffing one. Somebody deciding between four performances will choose the interpreted one — if the listing says which performance that is. An accommodation quietly arranged the week before is real for the one person who wrote in and invisible to everyone else who would have come, and the seats stay empty for reasons the box office never learns.
So we work backwards from whenever your programme goes public. Send the dates while the listing is still open and the accessible ones are confirmed in time to be printed beside the rest, held to the same providers across a run wherever the calendar allows. Send them afterwards and the work still gets staffed — it just reaches a smaller audience than it deserved to.
Where we work in Chicago
Give us the venue and, if the event is a public one, the date the listing goes live. The second one usually sets the schedule more than the first.
Downtown theatres and concert programming, the museum at the top of Grant Park, city and county offices, the courts, and the hotel ballrooms carrying the conference calendar.
Neighborhoods we cover
What we provide in Chicago
A public audience is never only one kind of audience, so a Chicago listing that says nothing but interpreted is already leaving people out. Order the accommodations together and they can be announced together.
American Sign Language, DeafBlind tactile, and International Sign — for a medical appointment, a business meeting, a classroom, or a stage where the interpreter has to be visible from the back of the house.
Learn more about ASL & Sign Language InterpretingSettings we staff here
Every setting below can carry its access on its own listing. What differs is how early that listing closes — a ticketed stage prints its accessible dates months ahead, while an outdoor stage may not have a running order until the week of. Either way, our own five-business-day floor for an on-site date runs underneath it, and when the listing closes sooner than that, ours is the deadline that actually binds.
Interpreted performances and audio-described ones in the Loop houses, with the script read and a rehearsal attended before the accessible night rather than after it.
Described and interpreted tours, talks in the galleries, and wall text in translation, so a collection reads the same way to a visitor who cannot see it or cannot hear the guide.
The pier's shows, festivals and family programming — interpreted, captioned, or described, and staffed for a crowd that arrives in waves rather than sitting down at once.
Concerts and festival line-ups in the parks, where the interpreting team is placed and lit as part of the stage plot instead of being squeezed in beside it.
Game days and arena events, with captions carried on the board and providers positioned where they read from the stands, not only from the front rows.
Multi-track agendas across convention halls and hotel ballrooms, with interpreters rotated through long days and captions on the main-stage feed.
Consultations, admissions and the conversations families have in corridors, covered by providers with clinical backgrounds working to HIPAA minimum-necessary practice.
Lectures, labs, assemblies and parent meetings across the city's campuses and school buildings, signed or spoken in whichever language the household is most comfortable in.
Where Chicago bookings land
Chicago's access work concentrates on a short stretch of lakefront and the theatres and arenas behind it — sites that programme year round and book their accommodations months ahead.
Audio description carries the collection for blind and low-vision visitors; document and media translation opens the written material to visitors arriving in another language.
Festivals, performances and attractions across an open site. Sign language interpreting and live captioning cover the programming; audio description handles what is only ever shown, never said.
Concerts, public art and civic events at Pritzker Pavilion and around it. Outdoor staging decides interpreter placement, and captions need a screen of their own rather than a share of the main one.
Multilingual subtitles, audio description and live captioning make a night on State Street work for non-English-speaking, blind and Deaf patrons in the same house.
A Cubs afternoon or a Bulls night runs the same accommodations: an interpreter in view of the section, captions on the board, and a named coordinator reachable during the game.
Working in Chicago
All six accommodations are available across the city — the Loop theatres and museums, Navy Pier and the park stages, the ballparks and arenas, the convention floors, the hospitals, the campuses, and the neighbourhood organisations south and west of downtown. The part worth planning around is timing. Confirmation is written to a date, and a date that is fixed while your programme is still going to press can be advertised; one fixed afterwards can only be answered on request.
Client Stories
4.8 · Based on 240 Reviews
Carrie Heitman
"I can not recommend ICS highly enough. Hook & Eye Theater had a wonderful experience working with Shelby and the team at ICS from beginning to end. What an incredible organization serving the theatrical community and beyond."
Frank Starling
"Accessibility is an essential part of inclusion, and Inclusive Communication Services delivered it with excellence at Cannes Lions International Festival of Creativity. Their ASL interpreting, CART captioning, and service coordination teams supported our conference stages, networking spaces, and last-minute changes with calm professionalism and deep care."
Christina Dixon
"I had the pleasure of seeing the ICS American Sign Language interpreting team at a conference in San Francisco. Their professionalism and expertise puts them in a league of their own. Shelby and her team set the standard for professionalism, coordination, and accessibility."
Laura Mosteller
"Our company has been using ICS for years at our annual conference. Their kind and clear communication leading up to the event and their prompt arrival each day makes the choice a no-brainer."
Patrick McMullen
"Inclusive Communication Services did an amazing job at Cannes Lions Festival. They treated us with kindness and made sure we had full access to interpreters the whole time. It honestly felt like everything was normal."
Emily Johnson — AADMD
"We have loved working with ICS and appreciate their flexible approach to working with our budget. The services have been game changing for what we are able to provide."
What to expect
Three of the four below are about how fast we can move. The fourth is about how late your own programme can still absorb an answer, and on a public date that is usually the one that binds.
How booking works
The dates, the venue, what happens on stage or in the room, and who you are accommodating. A draft running order is more useful to us than a finished one, because it can still be changed.
One named coordinator holds the whole programme rather than a single performance of it, and stays reachable on the day itself.
Providers are matched to the material and confirmed against specific dates, so those dates can go into the listing, the ticketing system, and the press release with a name behind them.
Position, lighting and screen feeds are agreed with your production team ahead of the day, and everyone is in the building early enough to stand where they will actually be standing.
Frequently asked questions
Get started
Dates, venue, what is happening in the room, and who you are accommodating. You will have an answer the next working day naming the dates we can confirm, the cost of each of them, and the wording your listing needs.
