Unpacking the European Accessibility Act

Wächter is working to demystifiy the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) and explains why event professionals should care about them.

Frank Wächter, senior digital marketing manager at Congrex Switzerland, a conference management company, recently led an initiative to update the company’s website to comply with the requirements of the European Accessibility Act (EAA) — and meet a deadline. The EAA, which focuses on general digital accessibility and is a directive of the European Union, which took effect in 2019, became mandatory on June 28, 2025 for most digital services in the EU and for those serving EU-based customers.

The standards are technical — based on the WCAG (Web Content Accessibility Guidelines) but all events professionals should care about them, Wächter told Digital Media Editor Magdalina Atanassova on the Convene Podcast. “Accessibility barriers can make even basic things like reading event information or completing a form really frustrating for some users. If your digital touchpoints aren’t accessible, you’re excluding people before they even get to your event.”

The EAA covers websites as well as “online booking systems, registration tools, basically all the digital things your audience interacts with,” Wächter said, and requires making them accessible to all users, including those who are blind or have limited vision. This includes ensuring that its pages have such features as sufficient color contrast, navigable headings, clear links, and text that can be resized or read by screen readers.

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Wächter’s biggest takeaway was an emotional rather than technical insight: It was “how deeply accessibility connects to trust,” he told Atanassova. “When people can navigate your site or your app or your forms — whatever — with ease, they feel included. The challenge here is getting teams to move past the idea that accessibility is just a checkbox or an extra. It needs to be part of the process from the very start.”

Barbara Palmer is Convene’s deputy editor.