It’s not me it’s them: How disabled fans are written out of live music.

Around a quarter of the UK population is disabled.  That’s one in four of us
navigating a society that still treats access requirements as a commodity we
should be grateful for. No wonder I feel like a burden. 

I was reminded of this, predictably and promptly when I went to buy tickets for
Lily Allen’s UK tour

The concert wasn’t sold out. Plenty of seats were available. The problem? The
three rows of accessible seating were already gone. Three rows out of a
seating capacity of 1,866. Spoiler alert: I’m still going (anything for you, Lily).

Disabled people are very good at finding ways to just improvise when the world
shrugs and says “that’ll do”. But let’s not pretend this is a novel inconvenience or
a one-off glitch in the ticketing matrix. It’s a pattern. And it’s boring. And it’s
political.

Let’s start with the numbers, because they matter. Around 25% of people
identify as disabled, according to the Government’s most recent Family
Resources Survey. Disabled people are more likely to be women, more likely to
be poor, and more likely to experience exclusion across almost every public
sphere including employment, healthcare and housing.

And yet, when it comes to live music venues, theatres and stadiums, access is
still treated like a generous add-on. A token. A legal checkbox to tick and then
forget about. Three rows of accessible seating doesn’t reflect demand. It says:
we assume disabled people won’t come.

How can we compete in the race to get a ticket when disabled fans are invited
to phone a separate number then email to supply evidence to prove they are
“disabled  enough”. 

✨Equality, but make it conditional ✨

Accessible seating isn’t charity. It isn’t a favour. It’s infrastructure. It should be
scaled to the actual population, not an outdated idea of who counts as an
audience member.

Before anyone reaches for the tiny violin of “but venues are old” or “it’s
complicated”- yes, it is. So is everything worth doing. Access takes planning,
money and consultation with disabled people, the group most consistently left
out of the conversation about accessibility. Funny that.

Until accessible seating reflects reality rather than tokenism, the message is
clear: disabled people are still an afterthought.

I wish I could say I believe so much in the cause I’m willing to forgo seeing Miss
Allen, but I’ll be there. I will climb those stairs to my seat like my life depended
on it and sing my heart out to Pussy Palace.