Having had my soul eaten by the onslaught of treatments for my condition I found myself unable to walk any distance, stand for any length of time and have very little resilience to battle through these conditions. I applied for a Nimbus Access Card which, with enough notice to the venue, should enable me to attend live entertainment without feeling exhausted before even entering the venue, and now a Hidden Disabilities Sunflower lanyard. The main focus of this article is to establish the experience of people with accessibility issues in venues / events who just need a little thought put into their provision, after all, ‘the “Equality Act 2010” is the primary law governing accessibility for venues, requiring businesses to make “reasonable adjustments” to ensure disabled people are not placed at a substantial disadvantage when accessing services, including physical spaces like venues, which could involve adding ramps, lifts, or accessible toilets.’
Emma and I have always had a love of live entertainment and bought our kids up having an equal love for such events. Watching ‘Up and coming’ bands or our favourite bands play in smaller venues has always been the mainstay of our live entertainment diet, but these venues tend to be standing only which I and many others just can’t access due to our condition and need a little help. We have attended concerts at larger venues, but we do hate large, soulless arenas or stadiums for our gigs.
So we have gathered together our ‘Cancer Warrior’ Friends and started on a mission to rate the venues / public facilities we visit from the point of view of our experiences as regards our accessibility issues. Not so much the bands we see (although I may mention them occasionally) or the event we go to, but our experience from the initial contact via email, parking at the venue through to the view of the gig, toilet access etc. We thought this may prove useful to those of you who are anxious of taking that stride back out into the world after life changing events or just can’t face the trauma of attending events with that uncertainty. Don’t judge our taste in music, but use our experience to enable you to enjoy something others are doing daily. John & Emma, Fi & Ant, Ali & Richard.
andaccessibilityforall@gmail.com
The Dodgy Walnut 