The tech start-up helping to improve cricket fan inclusivity
Glamorgan CCC are the latest cricket club to join Picturepath’s award winning visual timeline app.
Picturepath is designed to help people with autism and anxiety plan and visualise their daily activities. As part of the app, the platform features visitor guides for their venue partners, with Glamorgan being the first cricket club to sign up. These guides allow sports clubs to better support fans with additional needs during match visits.
The app’s software enables fans who would typically struggle in heightened sensory environments, such as sports stadia, to reduce sensory stress by seeing, planning and preparing for each stage of their matchday visit.
Large crowds, loud cheering, floodlights, sights and sounds typical of matchday can cause significant anxiety for fans with additional needs, particularly those with autism. Clubs are increasingly looking for solutions that improve access, inclusivity and allow all fans to enjoy a fair and equal matchday experience.
Head of operations at Glamorgan Cricket, Dan Cherry, said: “As a Club, we’re always looking at ways to improve our customer’s experience and make their visit to Sophia Gardens memorable.
“The Picturepath app does this and also breaks down barriers for autistic or anxious fans and will help us to become more inclusive and welcoming to all fans.”
The app uses images from each specific venue including parking and transport links, entrances, views from seats, toilets, catering and navigating back home, meaning fans can use Picturepath to create visual timelines to plan their matchday experience to manage expectations and reduce anxiety.
Speaking of the collaboration, Picturepath founder, Richard Nurse said: “We’re delighted to partner with Glamorgan to allow visitors to Sophia Gardens to plan their day using picturepath’s visitor guides. As a father to a cricket-mad boy, I know how enjoyable it can be to bring children to watch cricket, but also that the unusual environment and all the sights and sounds can be unsettling, especially for autistic or anxious fans.
Glamorgan are the first County Championship side to create these visitor guides and it’s wonderful to see that they’re committed to making visits less stressful, more inclusive, and improve the experience for all cricket lovers.”
About One Sports Club
Picturepath is a visual timeline app to help people with autism and additional needs to
plan and progress through their day.
Founded by Richard Nurse and co-created with special educational needs staff, autistic families and Liverpool start-up accelerator NOVA. Picturepath has proven to effectively reduce anxiety, meltdowns and allow families with additional needs to live fulfilled lives with reduced disruption.
The Picturepath mobile app is available for free on Apple and Google Play stores.
Website: https://mypicturepath.com/
Twitter: @mypicturepath
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/company/picturepath/
Instagram: @mypicturepath
Facebook: /mypicturepath
About Glamorgan
Glamorgan County Cricket Club is one of eighteen first-class county clubs within the domestic cricket structure of England and Wales. It represents the historic county of Glamorgan.
Glamorgan County Cricket Club moved into Sophia Gardens in 1967, which was renovated and expanded over the winter of 2007/08 and turned the ground into the world-class cricket stadium and events space it is today.
www.glamorgancricket.com/landing
About Nova
Nova is a Liverpool-based venture studio, launched in 2009. It partners with entrepreneurs to turn ideas into successful, scalable tech startups, in sectors including health-tech, fintech and edtech.
With no personal capital investment required, Nova provides entrepreneurs with mentorship, guidance and funding. It invests at the ideas stage, and through its team of 20+ startup mentors – plus over 100 designers, software engineers and marketers globally – it takes startups from idea, to product, to market.
Nova becomes an equity holding business partner in each of the startups it supports. Its startup success rate is six times higher than the industry average.