Poeh - voor iemand die al jaren geen tickets voor een groot concert heeft gekocht is het een pad vol valkuilen geworden…

Een hoop scalpers of op z’n minst lui die met “servicekosten” van 50 euro denken te kunnen cashen. Gelukkig is mijn allergie voor dat soort lui groter dan mijn FOMO (‘u heeft nog 7 minuten om uw bestelling af te ronden’!) en via de website van de artiest kwam ik alsnog in de officiele (🤞) wachtrij.

Wie zie ik nog meer op 7 juli in het #Zuiderpark?

#Alanis alanis.com 🇨🇦

Brett Emmons is this generation's Dave Coulier

#TheBeaches #Alanis

We're seeing Alanis Morissette this time next week. It's the last of the "stuff I missed out on in my youth" gigs this year and the first I booked when I found out about it back in January.

I've not been to gigs for a long time due to costs/accessibility and going again this year as a #Disabled person has been challenging but mostly it's all generally worked out ok.

But this Alanis gig has been the most stressful of them all and I'm starting to actually dread it and honestly, that feels pretty bloody bad.

It started when they changed the venue. It was supposed to be Cardiff Castle - a well known and established venue with plenty of reviews and reports of the accessibility available online.
Because of "demand" (greed of the organisers) it was moved to a field about 15-20 minutes walk away at Blackweir Fields.

I've been voicing my concerns about the accessibility to the organisers via email since they notified me of the move. As best as I can tell, they haven't ever put on a live music event at this location, certainly not to this scale - Cardiff Castle was 9000, Blackweir is somewhere around 35000. So I have no idea about the arrangements outside of what little the organiser Cuffe & Taylor have said.

I've twice had to inform them links on their website don't work, including their "Accessibility Pack" that was supposedly available weeks ago but amazingly, literally not actually accessible to view from any browser or device I tried.

Strangely, it is now - just minutes before I got a response to my last email telling them about it.

I have only just had it confirmed there'll be metal tracking at least between the entrance and the accessible platform.
The "sensory tent" for neurodivergent ticketholders however, is about as far from the platform as it can get and without tracking. So almost certainly inaccessible if it rains and the ground is muddy.

Then they've just told me that my "essential companion" ticket does not include a chair (you cannot take your own as chairs are on the list of banned items, which also includes umbrellas). They expect D to stand next to me the entire gig. I've told them how ridiculous that is and how it would make communication difficult and potentially painful. Also, depending on how they've set the platform up, wtf is a wheelchair user behind a standing carer supposed to do? Or are they going to line up the carers to the side like waiting servants?

It's all so... exhausting.
I'm so close to just not going and trying to get a refund.

It really shouldn't be this fucking difficult should it?

#WheelchairUser #Accessibility #Disabled #MusicVenues #Alanis