This isn't at all the kind of post I would usually make, and I'm not sure this will go anywhere as I'm not really a part of MCRblr as a whole, but me and a whole queue of disabled people had a horrific experience with the staff of Wembley and I want to talk about it publicly! I am so angry about the whole situation, and I really think this should be public information honestly, and I highly recommend anybody else who faced discrimination at Wembley to write an email of complaint, and as its a national stadium, consider CCing in your MP.
Me and my partner went to see MCR at Wembley on Friday the 10th of July. We both have access needs, it's not my place to talk for my partner, but I have fibromyalgia and use a walking stick pretty much all the time now. For bigger events, I tend to use a wheelchair, but with concerts being so much fuss to book a wheelchair spot, I don't use it (and even if I did, London Wembley's Station is not wheelchair accessible).
We were in the access queue at turnstile J, in the yellow zone. We were quite lucky to get there a little earlier than most, so there were maybe 10 people ahead of us? The doors opened about 20 minutes late, which was first of all, very poorly communicated by the venue, not just to attendees but to outside staff, who did not know what was going on.
We were not inside the venue until around 17:50. It took 30 minutes for them to get through at most 15 people. The outside staff had no idea why, the info checkpoint staff said he assumed that something had happened inside.
It turned out that the actual reason, which we were eventually informed of by another member of staff, was the steward in charge of said access queue was Intentionally Going Slowly. I'm sure I don't need to explain the issue here, with one person deciding to, for lack of better term, piss about, whilst there are easily a hundred disabled people waiting in high temperatures outside, in a queue which is designed to prevent said people standing for an extended period of time in a long queue.
When we finally got into the room to have our bags checked, we are taken into what I can only describe as a prison-esque room. By this point, one of my legs had entirely given out and I was struggling to stand, so my partner (again, also disabled) had to open our bags and show the steward what was in them.
My partner has to get on the floor to do so. There is no table. The steward does not offer help. If anything, he is acting incredibly inpatient about the fact they are visibly struggling. He does not do anything to help. He also does not search the bags properly. I know there were two pockets in my bag which were not searched. Wembley has incredibly strict policies on what can be brought in, and that bag should have been checked properly.
This is active discrimination. Those who have access needs were forced to stand and wait for much longer than those who did not, and then practically forced to humiliate themselves by this steward. The lack of explanation of what was going on, the fact this steward was allowed to make so many people go through this, and the fact the room that disabled people are searched in doesn't even have a table (which the regular search points do) is absolutely disgusting.
I have other gripes with our experience at Wembley, from our designated zone and turnstile being the complete opposite side of our seats, to their (and likely TFLs) poor planning at the end of the event, but the way we were treated with our access needs was absolutely vile. What this specific steward did was Direct Discrimination, and the lack of access arrangements in place at Wembley for an event like this are Indirect Discrimination, legally.
I'm sharing this, mostly because I'm angry and I think Wembley should be held accountable for these things, but also to encourage other people to complain about experiences they might have had there (or at other venues!).
I would not recommend attending shows at Wembley as a person with access needs. If I'm totally honest, it significantly impacted the night itself, and as exciting as the show was, it was ruined by my experiences with the stadium itself.
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