Background: Many public entertainment venues offer reduced price or free tickets to essential companions of people with disabilities. This often helps offset poorer seating for the companion or a reduced view, or simply recognition that they will assist the person they are accompanying in case of emergency evacuation and so on. In short it benefits both the venue and the disabled person (who oftentimes ends up paying for the companion ticket as well as their own).
When the O2 phone company bought the Millenium Dome and renamed it as The O2 Arena, I was quite excited. That excitement somewhat waned when I tried to book tickets for a Barbra Streisand concert and learned that not only do they charge wheelchair users full price but also charge full price for essential companions and additionally charge £20 for Blue Badge parking! After learning it would be £250 each and that the wheelchair area was right at the back, it didn't take much thought before we turned down the Streisand tickets. I also phoned customer services and told them that they had priced themselves out of my market and that many people wit disabilities could not afford to pay for a carer / companion and pay for their ticket too. (We subsequently saw Streisand in Manchester for much less)!
A couple of weeks later I booked tickets to see Elton Johns' Red Piano Show also at the O2. Again, full price tickets for wheelchair user and companion. I reluctantly paid up but couldn't help thinking that a company as large as AEG who own O2 doesn't really need to be squeezing people with disabilities like htis, totally out of step with many other major London venues. I've seen one or two similar comments in the disability press recently too.
Earlier today I got a phone call from Ticketmaster, the company that sells the tickets on behalf of the O2. I was surprised and delighted to hear that they have had a policy turnaround and that the money I paid for my companion for the Elton John concert is to be refunded.
Presumably the groundswell of opinion changed their minds somehow, I guess I should have asked about the parking too but was just so excited to be told to expect £110 to be credited to my card I completely forgot!
When the O2 phone company bought the Millenium Dome and renamed it as The O2 Arena, I was quite excited. That excitement somewhat waned when I tried to book tickets for a Barbra Streisand concert and learned that not only do they charge wheelchair users full price but also charge full price for essential companions and additionally charge £20 for Blue Badge parking! After learning it would be £250 each and that the wheelchair area was right at the back, it didn't take much thought before we turned down the Streisand tickets. I also phoned customer services and told them that they had priced themselves out of my market and that many people wit disabilities could not afford to pay for a carer / companion and pay for their ticket too. (We subsequently saw Streisand in Manchester for much less)!
A couple of weeks later I booked tickets to see Elton Johns' Red Piano Show also at the O2. Again, full price tickets for wheelchair user and companion. I reluctantly paid up but couldn't help thinking that a company as large as AEG who own O2 doesn't really need to be squeezing people with disabilities like htis, totally out of step with many other major London venues. I've seen one or two similar comments in the disability press recently too.
Earlier today I got a phone call from Ticketmaster, the company that sells the tickets on behalf of the O2. I was surprised and delighted to hear that they have had a policy turnaround and that the money I paid for my companion for the Elton John concert is to be refunded.
Presumably the groundswell of opinion changed their minds somehow, I guess I should have asked about the parking too but was just so excited to be told to expect £110 to be credited to my card I completely forgot!
The Millenium Dome, as seen from the offices of the Olympic Delivery Agency, 23rd floor, One Churchill Square.
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