Hello readers, Samantha here again, with yet another woeful tale of appalling concert ticket access. De Ja Vu anyone? Yeah, me too. Unfortunately, this is a daily experience for people with disabilities. Well, it is if you want to attend stuff, maybe the message is I should just stay home instead.
So, this time, it’s The Killers, playing O2 Academy Leeds on 17th August, as a warm up date for their V Festival appearance.
I began trying to get to grips with this one yesterday. I can’t go on my own due to my disability, and I cannot afford to buy two full price tickets so I carer can come with me, and, I feel, nor should I have to. As tickets weren’t on sale yet, I couldn’t find any access info. So I called the number listed for the O2 Academy Leeds. Which told me to call TicketMaster Customer Services on 0844 499 9999. This number only gave me three options: buy tickets, enquire about an existing Irish booking, or enquire about an existing UK booking. So, I was put through to the sales line.
The call was answered by a chap named Sam, who I’m sure regretted answering this particular call pretty darn quickly. He told me that accessible bookings were handled by the venue, and confirmed what I had already discovered with a quick google-the venue box office opened at 12 noon. I explained politely to Sam that, by this time, all tickets would, in all likelihood, have sold out, and this essentially meant people with disabilities were not able to access tickets, representing a breach of the Equality Act 2010. He said he understood that, but that TicketMaster were only selling tickets on behalf of the O2 Academy, and had no control over their opening hours. I clarified that people without disabilities were able to purchase tickets for events by calling TicketMaster 24 hours a day, but people with disabilities could not, and stated that I saw this as discrimination. He was very pleasant and I felt quite sorry for him.
Same old, same old, anyone?
So, tickets went on sale at 9am this morning. I called TicketMaster, and was loading the website at the same time. TicketMaster’s phone lines told me that all their sales representatives were busy, and to try later, before disconnecting me repeatedly. Then, when I finally got further than this, a recorded message told me they had no tickets available for The Killers.
At the same time, I was trying to get TicketMaster‘s website to load, when it finally did, I clicked the magic Accessibility Info button, to find a message saying that the venue was handling access requests, and their box office was open 12-5pm. It did however, also give an email address, so I sent a quick email enquiring at the same time. 
My googling also stumbled upon LiveNation‘s page, which unfortunately, when I clicked for tickets, just took me back to TicketMaster. However, LiveNation’s magic accessibility button, while confirming that the venue was dealing with all accessible bookings, listed the opening hours as 10am-6pm. Curiouser and Curiouser, said Alice.
Given the inconsistent information, I decided to ring the box office and see. Engaged a few times (odd, if they aren’t open yet), then finally, I got through to a pleasant woman named Anna. She informed me that, unfortunately, all their accessible ticket allocation had gone. I enquired how this could possibly be so, when the TicketMaster website stated that the Box Office didn’t open until 12. She told me that the website had listed their email address too, and she had a lot of emails by 9.05am. I explained I had emailed, but she checked my name, and said my email hadn’t come in early enough.
So I asked Anna how many tickets were in their accessible tickets allocation. She stated that it was the number recommended by the council, but did not provide the actual number. I rephrased the question, and then she told me how many tickets they allocate for disabled customers.
Guess…..
Go on, dear reader, guess……
I bet you can’t……
FOUR.
Yep, I typed that right, four. Yes, you read that correctly, four.
FOUR tickets are allocated for customers with disabilities by O2 Academy Leeds.
I was sure I must have misheard. “Did you say four?”, “Yes”, “FOUR tickets are allocated for customers with disabilities?”, “Yes, because that is the number recommended by the council, for evacuation purposes”. I asked whether this number was soley wheelchair users, and she stated it was anyone who would need assistance to evacuate the venue.
I then asked the capacity of the venue (2,300 people), her name, and explained that I blog on disability issues and would be writing about this.
So I did the maths. 4 tickets out of 2, 300 is 0.17% of the available tickets were allocated to customers with disabilities. This means for every disabled person able to attend, 574 people without disabilites can attend.
Now, I’m no expert, but I’m fairly sure 0.17% is quite a lot less than the percentage of people with disabilities.
It’s surprisingly hard to find a percentage, but the Employer’s Forum on Disability reckons 18% of the population, 10 million people in the UK, are covered by the Equality Act. Not all of those will need a carer to attend a concert. Not all of those will be fans of The Killers (although frankly, that also baffles me 
But 0.17% of tickets? FOUR tickets?? Really?? That’s Equality of Access??????????
As if to confirm my suspicions, Anna has just responded to my initial email:
“just to confirm unfortunately due to huge demand for tickets disabled access tickets for this event have now
sold out”.
Huge demand. From disabled people, by 9.05am, when all the info said access tickets weren’t available before 12. And they had four tickets available.
Just to summarise:
- There was no access information available on O2 Academy Leeds website, or TicketMaster website, before tickets went on sale.
- People without disabilities could call at 9am for tickets.
- Information given was inconsistent, TicketMaster said the box office opened at 12, LiveNation said 10. Actually, it opened at 9am.
- Despite “huge demand” from people with disabilities, only four tickets were available for such customers, and these were gone by 9.05am, 2 ours and 55 minutes before the website selling tickets said they were available.
Is it really 2012? Have I gone back in time to 1973, and have to figure out a way to get home? Where’s Sam Tyler when you need him? (Sorry about the Life on Mars references!).
Anyone got a brick wall I can borrow to hit my head against??
I think I should give up and just stay home.
While in no way condoning anything here, what may well happened, because they are renowned as a very strict authority for licensing matters, is that Leeds city council have imposed a high staff member to customer “assistance to evacuate the venue” ratio leading to numbers being limited.
In any case if the venue are using the council as an excuse then taking it with them could be an interesting avenue of enquiry.
Another reason to do this now is that Leeds Arena is currently being built, so you may be able to get them to publicly announce a policy that will improve matters in that venue (which will be directly crapping on Sheffield anyway).
A good route for FOI is http://www.whatdotheyknow.com/
Thanks for your comments Tony. It’s certainly an interesting aspect to the problem. However, although I won’t claim to be knowledgeable in this area, I would’ve thought that the point of the two for one free PA tickets sometimes offered is that there is then there is someone on hand to offer assistance, so this wouldn’t entirely fall to the venue staff?
Hi Samatha,
Ive been reading your concert woes with interest, as they have similar issues down here. I think there should be a minmum quota for people who need assisantance by capacity-say 1 in 5? I like my comdiens, and have recently missed out on Jimmy Carr tyickets for the same reason. I feel damn lucky to get a ticket when I get tickets for events, and we shouldn’t have to feel lucky in a way. We should be able to book online, or ring up and book with a cear indication of how many disabled/carer spots there are and how many have been sold.
Over the years, ve missed out on Musicals, Comdiens and Sporting Events because of this attuidute. Funnily enough, the nonly time Ive had problems is when Ive booked something through Ticketmaster.
What does that say about them?
Hi Ian, thanks for your comments. Sorry to hear you’ve had problems too. You’re absolutely right, we shouldn’t have to feel lucky, getting tickets should not be this much hard work! I’ve also missed out time and time again, and just given up and paid for a PA ticket more times than I can count. It’s not 1973, and this needs to change
Wow! Congratulations on documenting this appalling – but all too frequent – situation so clearly. The argument commonly put forward by venues and local councils – that addition staff is required to evacuate disabled people – therefore our access should be severely restricted is, I believe what’s known as, a deductive fallacy. It is certainly a discriminatory practice that is in long need of challenging.
An event manager once told me that a UK conference takes places every couple of years at which event/venue management gather and discuss, amongst other topices, such issues as the number of wheelchair spaces, policies on issuing concessionary tickets, etc. He clambed up when I showed keen interest in the aforesaid conference and, despite asking around, I’ve not been able to discover anything more on it. But it would be interesting to learn if policies, whether official or unofficial, do exist and how they arrive at them. I’m pretty sure disabled people aren’t involved in such decision making.
Meanwhile, I wonder if PeskyPeople might consider hosting a data bank of information, if we all made an effort to find out how many concessionary tickets are available for disabled people and their carers/PAs/care workers at venues across the UK?
One final point, if I may. How disabled people call themselves is, in my opinion, entirely up to them, crip, spaz, blinky, wobbly. But I am curious as to why, on a website such as this, which I thought would have aligned with and promoted the Social Model of Disability and its liberating terminology, do you use the Tragedy/Medical Model term: “people-with-disabilities”?
Hi, your comments are useful and insightful and if there is such an event taking place to discuss common issues such as no of wheelchair spaces and policies on issuing concessionary tickets I wonder if they include their customers in consultation/discussion before drawing conclusions/policy decisions.
We don’t have a data bank of what concessionary tickets are available at what venues/tours as they vary and am told it is up to the promoter not the venue but am up for trying to pull that together maybe using a shared google document? Would you be happy to help? A crowd of us would get that information really quickly as opposed to one or two individuals.
Lastly, terminology: I try to use disabled people as much as possible there are terms others use such as hearing impaired which I never use but that is my own opinion. Each to their own if disabled people are using terms like crip etc. I whole heartedly focus on the social model and not the medical model of disability.
I’d no idea that ‘people with disabilities’ was considered a medical model term. We don’t censor blog postings as these are the words used in the blog post by the (disabled) person writing it. Language evolves so thank you for pointing that out will have a look into it.
Hi John, thanks for your comments.
As the guest blogger who wrote the post in question, I should say firstly that any language choices are mine, not Alison’s/PeskyPeople’s.
I try not to get too hung up on the language used, and personally, don’t object to being referred to as “disabled” or as a “person with a disability”, but I know some people do object to certain terms. I had no idea that the latter was associated with the medical model, I tend to use it as a preference, as it (to me) implies that someone is a person, first and foremost, that their disability is a part of their identity, not the whole of it. But language is, as you said, a personal thing.
Obviously the social model is hugely important in gaining disabled rights, but I don’t see it as the whole story; no matter how society was adapted, there are some things I would still be unable to do, and I see the social model being co-opted in worrying ways- e.g. “we now have disability discrimination legislation in place, so there are no barriers to someone with a disability working”, for example.
Hi Alison, Thanks for your comments. It was good to hear and see your great presentation at the A11YLon conference.
Thanks for reminding me that it is the promoter, not the venue, that decides on ticketing issues. Yes, I would be happy to get involved. And I’m sure lots of other disgruntled disabled people would too.
I suppose I’d envisage it to be something like Attitude is Everything (AiE) but, unlike them, making the information transparent and for the direct and immediate benefit of disabled punters rather than the music industry itself. I’ve mystery shopped for AiE, their intentions are good and what they do, they do well – but their remit seems limited, giving detailed information back to the venue concerned but not making it publicly available for potential punters. Maybe AiE are diplomatically keeping one eye on their Charter members/supporters.
Incidentally, Samantha might like to note that O2 Arena claims to be one of AiE’s supporters:
http://www.attitudeiseverything.org.uk/our-supporters
and O2 Academy Leeds was awarded a Charter Bronze, which includes commiting to “an accessible booking system” and ‘2 for 1’ ticket scheme.
http://www.attitudeiseverything.org.uk/the-charter-of-best-practice/charter-venues-and-festivals/
Clearly that venue is failing in its commitment and it might be worthwhile Samantha taking it up with AiE too and becoming one of their mystery shoppers!
I found the following sources to be helpful, including an explanation for why it does not make sense to say ‘people with disabilities’, check out:
http://www.saifscotland.org.uk/fileuploads/low-res-saif-social-model-8338.pdf
and click Download on the following page for a useful Guide:
http://www.nuj.org.uk/innerPagenuj.html?docid=386
Hi again John,
Interesting, thanks for that info about O2! They said on twitter they’d look into the issue, but never got bck to me.
Sheffield Arena also have an AiE award, yet fail to offer a 2-4-1 scheme. I have spoken to Attitude is Everything about this, and my understanding is that the venues pass the buck on this one, saying it’s the promoters who decide on ticketing, not them, so they are not in breach of the award.
Entirely unsatisfactory to be sure, and frustrating when the promoters pass handling of all access issues back to the venues!