Guest Blog: Attending Shows as a Disabled Fan

Read on for a guest blog from 8123 Family member Erin Phillips, who shares the importance of accessibility of live music.

How long has it been since your last concert? Eighteen months? Longer? The time it takes for a virus to ravage the world while we wait, hoping venue doors will open again one day. Maybe you’re vaccinated— safe to enjoy stage lights and pressing crowds. Your favorite band on stage playing songs that served you, providing stability through a tunnel of uncertainty.

And maybe you’re not; safe, comfortable, able to do that. Like me.

The Maine hosts some of the safer shows for your friendly neighborhood spoonie. I’m chronically ill, invisibly disabled, and usually pass as an able-bodied person even while my body begs me to get out of the pit.

Among easy-going crowds, a family who tend to look out for one another, and strangers happy to chat between sets, there’s a connection impossible to replicate at any other concert. I’ve felt it every time I’ve caught The Maine in Philly. And before each show, my first thought walking into the venue is that someone would probably help me if my knees gave out in the middle of Ice Cave.

Accessibility is a privilege, which wasn’t something I thought about until I personally experienced the lack of it. Concerts are bright oases for so many people. I’m desperate to lose myself in a few hours of live, musical enchantment again. Except magic comes at high cost if you live in an uncooperative body.

Do I want to explain my invisible chronic pain and fatigue to venue staff and hope I’ll be able to sit without too much fanfare?

Should I find a wall to lean against and hope it provides enough support?

No wall in sight. Time to call in my deal with the devil.

Living with a dynamic disability means some days, and some concerts are easier than others. Even buying a ticket months in advance is a gamble. Flare-ups are regularly irregular— guaranteed to blaze again, but fickle as the weather. Certainty comes in a few flavors: pain for pleasure, and days to recover if I choose to attend.

Gameplan?

Prepare the best you can, call the venue to ask about their medication policies, try to reconcile how the music you love isn’t built to accommodate someone like you. A young, disabled person. Then fit yourself around that truth like the thorn it is and try your best to soak in how alive 8123 is around you. Because magic blurs the pain until the lights go out.

I wish I knew how to make shows safer and more accessible for disabled fans. While answers aren’t readily available or easy, awareness is a great start. Disability isn’t always visible, and the person beside you screaming their heart out might be fighting a brutal battle just to be in that room.

As doors reopen, masks slip down, and crowds gather, I hope you’ll acknowledge your choice— or lack of it, to attend a show. To occupy a space built for you, or built in spite of your existence. Maybe no one will notice the gaps in the crowd this summer; missing 8123 family members who don’t get a choice. Now, maybe you will.