I used to see live music at least once a week, where I’d bathe in the colorful glow of stage lights while bass rattled my heart inside my rib cage. There is something transformative and healing about music ― you can almost reach out and touch it.
As a music lover, I scan Coachella’s lineup every year. The Coachella Valley Music and Arts Festival is held every spring in Indio, California. The list of musicians gets more and more incredible each year, and 2018 is no exception: Beyoncé, Chromeo, Flatbush Zombies, Hayley Kiyoko, Ibeyi...
The longer I look at the list, the more frustrated I feel.
Music isn’t so easy to see live anymore. Five years ago, I was diagnosed with an incurable degenerative disease called Ehlers-Danlos syndrome. EDS is a collagen disorder that causes a slew of symptoms and comorbidities, including random joint dislocation.
Concerts are expensive when you’re chronically ill and constantly paying medical bills, but beyond this, many music venues aren’t wheelchair accessible ― even if they claim to be compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. The ADA is a civil rights law that was passed in 1990. It prohibits discrimination based on disability and provides mandatory guidelines that businesses must follow in order to be physically accessible to disabled staff and patrons.
The battle often starts before I even get into the building, because I can’t buy handicapped tickets through Ticketmaster the way everyone else does. I have to get in touch with the venue to confirm accessibility options. Have you ever tried to get someone on the phone at a box office? It’s nearly impossible.
Then, I have to actually get myself inside the venue. This February, I waited at the foot of a set of steep stairs at The Fillmore in San Francisco for an employee to take my phone away (out of sight, with all my personal information unlocked) so he could scan my tickets. The entrance was located up that same long flight of stairs, so I had to go around back into an alley to get into the building.
The ramshackle elevator that would normally get me inside was out of order; the employees had me wheel up a ramp onto a freight elevator. The thing swayed back and forth the whole ride up.
“This is how we get the equipment upstairs,” an employee said, trying to encourage me through my reluctance. “We... send… multimillion dollars’ worth of equipment [up this way].”
But I am not equipment. I am a person. Still, though our courts decided years ago that separate is not equal for anyone else, I don’t get to enter the venue with everyone else. I am treated the same way we treat drum kits and other inanimate objects.