"Really upsetting": Man turned away from concert for being in a wheelchair
A man from Melbourne has been left devastated after he was denied entry into a concert due to being a wheelchair.
Dylan Taylor and his friends arrived at the Pier Bandroom in the suburb of Frankston to see one of his favourite heavy metal bands Polaris, when he ran into problems getting in the door.
“I got to the front of the line, and they were checking IDs like normal, and one of the bouncers wouldn’t even acknowledge that I was there,” Taylor told 7News.
“I was holding up my licence, and he wouldn’t look at it or take it, and they had taken everyone else’s licence."
“I hadn’t really figured it out at this point ... but then the other bouncer said: ‘Nup, sorry mate, no wheelchairs’.”
Taylor’s group of friends called for a manager to discuss the potential for them to “make it work”.
The group was asked to wait around the side of the building for the manager, who was unable to offer any solutions.
Dylan said he was told it would be a fire safety risk to let him in, and that even though in a scenario where a person injured in the venue would be carried out by bouncers during a fire, that the bouncers would not carry a wheelchair user out in the same scenario.
“I’m spewin’ because, at this point, I haven’t even paid my friends back for the ticket, and I’ve ruined their night out,” he said.
His friends continued to try to reason with the manager to let Dylan in, even saying they had seen a wheelchair user in the venue two weeks earlier, but to no avail.
“Technically, you can have wheelchairs, but you have to be ambulant, that’s what we got out of them, in the end,” Taylor said.
According to Dylan, there was no wheelchair access disclaimer on his tickets, nor on the Pier Bandroom’s website or social media, with Google Maps even displaying an accessibility widget which claimed there was a “wheelchair-accessible entrance”.
A spokesperson from the Pier Bandroom parent company Endeavour Group told 7News it was sorry for the distress caused by the incident.
“The Pier Hotel was originally built in the 1800s and is a historic landmark in Frankston. While the Pier Hotel has various rooms on the ground floor, the Pier Bandroom function space is only accessible by stairs, and is not wheelchair accessible,” it said.
“We apologise to any ticket holders who were not given adequate information about our venue’s policies at the time of purchasing tickets to recent concerts. We regret any inconvenience or distress this may have caused.
“We are taking action to update the Pier Bandroom’s website with this information and communicate with any show promoters to do the same.”
Taylor said the incident at the Pier Bandroom “was the first time I’ve faced, I would say, pretty blatant discrimination”, as he has only required the wheelchair for 18 months after sustaining a permanent spine injury.
“You feel pretty empty inside, and I did have a little cry in the car on the way home."
“It just really upsets me thinking about people who have maybe been dealing with disability for their whole life. Who maybe haven’t had the other half of life I’ve had, to be able to go and experience these things before being in a wheelchair.”
While learning to live with his disability, Taylor was pleased to learn “how many people will go out of their way to help you out” but said it was disappointing to discover just how much his autonomy was curbed by poor accessibility.
“It’s been a steep learning curve,” Taylor said.
“Melbourne will accept the reputation of being inclusive and accepting, but it’s not necessarily accessible.”
Image credits: Google Maps / 7News / Dylan Taylor