A fundraising concert is being held by an organisation which has designed aids for blind and visually impaired performers.

The concert is taking taking place at Goodrich village hall at 7.30pm on November 12 and hopes to bolster the technology’s development by raising funds towards it.

Equart has been motivated by the vision of a performing arts that includes gifted blind and visually impaired singers. The charity is hoping to raise £7,500 to develop their patented navigation system design into an app through a series of concerts featuring gifted singers with visual impairments.

Their team of developers and researchers have developed a system which enables blind and visually impaired (VI) singers to pilot a stage safely and independently.

Equart’s founder Ginnie Blakey, who has worked at the Royal College for the Blind in Hereford said: “We have been researching the barriers that exist for visually impaired singers for 15 years and are now hoping to develop our design into a prototype. The app works exactly like a sat-nav but with bluetooth technology replacing satellite. It is designed to give the singer as much freedom on stage as a sighted person has.”

The final app is planned to be trialled and tested with gifted students from the Royal College for the Blind (RCB) in Hereford, where Equart’s founder, Ginnie Blakey has previously worked as a teacher.

The finished app will enable the talented blind students at the RCB to perform on an equal level with sighted performers and to explore new opportunities that were previously not open to them.

According to Denise Leigh, winner of television talent show “Operatunities” and the only blind singer in the UK to have been cast in a professional production, the app “has the potential to revolutionise the relationship that blind and visually impaired singers have with the performing arts”.

The concert at Goodrich features the award-winning soprano, Anne Wilkins, the only blind singer to win the blue riband in an Eisteddfodd (2012) and to work for the South Wales Police; she will be supported by local choirs and gifted musicians.