Disabled festival goers are calling out second-class treatment and inaccessible disabled areas at London’s Wireless Festival after they were faced with steep hills, rough gravel and obscured views of the stage.
The three-day event took place at Crystal Palace on July 1st - 3rd 2022, with tickets costing over £200.
BBC reports disabled ticket holders describing their experience as "disheartening and a waste of time and money" as they were expected to make their way up a steep hill to reach the venue's accessibility entrance close to Crystal Palace station, only to find themselves hundreds of metres from the main stage.
According to disability activist and long-time festival goer Katouche Goll, staff members were not able to give directions towards the accessible entrance and most of the workers were "completely unbothered, incompetent, somewhat hostile to any sort of request we have".
“There was no way any disabled person could take that hill on without any assistance”, continues Goll. “One of your wheels would definitely get stuck in a pothole and send you flying. It was very dangerous.”
When Goll’s sister Sweetie ended up carrying her on her back for part of the way, a member of staff pushed her and insisted that they weren’t disabled when trying to get access to the viewing platform.
“Being excluded from and segregated from everybody else is such a frustratingly characteristic aspect of being disabled,” Goll added. “Not because of anything to do with your actual condition, but simply because of the barriers that people put in place to stop you from being able to have an equitable experience of public life.”
Goll documented the experience on Twitter with the hashtag #DisabilityAccessWireless, calling on the festival's organisers Live Nation and Festival Republic to consult disabled people when planning events.