The Lack of Floor Seat Availability for Mobility Impaired

Alesha Savannah

Have you ever purchased or wanted to purchase floor seat tickets with a mobility impairment?

I went to the Mercedes Benz Stadium in Atlanta for the Beyoncé Renaissance Tour! I’ve got to say, that woman can put on a shoooow! Whew! Anyway, when originally purchasing the tickets the accessible seats were in the nosebleeds And cost almost three times the amount of a regular ticket! What in the world?! Being that I’m fairly independent and have the privilege and ability to easily transfer to most things; i decided to get floor seats!

The confusion and chaos that came simply because I’m a non-ambulatory wheelchair user who has seats that weren’t in the accessible section was Insane!! Now, granted, i figured I’d get a few funny looks so we made sure we got there early but this was waaaay more than that! After asking where our seats were about five times, we were pointed to an area and told to sit. Because the seats were zip tied together, i couldn’t stay in my chair. Okay, not the end of the world, right? After the staff watched me transfer to the seat And my partner Leave with my wheelchair, i was told those weren’t my seat and needed to move to the other side of the row! They were standing around as if i was just gonna get up and walk down there… ummmm you’re gonna have to wait until my chair arrives, sorry!

This is when the extra fun part began! After my partner retrieved my chair and i transferred back into. We finally get to the other side and now everyone has pretty much gotten to their seats! My seat was about the third before the end of the row. In my mind it was simple, ask the three ladies to stand and allow me to bump from chair to chair… did that happen? Yes but only after almost twenty minutes of nonsense debate about how I would get to my seat… it was so embarrassing and cumbersome for no reason! People in the row in front and behind were standing and backing up or moving the chairs. It was crazy! Finally, my partner and i had to interrupt the conversations happening around me instead of with me to simply show them how easy it was!

ugh! All of that to say, people with mobility impairments deserve to be able to have floor seats! If we were considered during design i believe that there could be end seats on each row available for someone to pull in with their mobility aid. Should no one with mobility impairments purchase the tickets, cool, fill it with a regular seat! We deserve to see the Queen up close like everyone else!