Overview

So many things wrong. From the cost of the car park (£27.50) which even though pre booked, gave out the blue badge pre booked spaces to anyone. 3.5 hour queue for the car park (to be turned away). No toilets accessible for a powerchair, oversold platform, no access to bar, dangerous crowd management.

Transport & Parking

If there was a zero it would get that. First off the whole management of this venue is appalling. There was a 3.5 hour queue for the parking we’d all pre booked. We arrived in Milton Keynes at 5pm (within 2.5 miles of venue). We finally got parked (after 3 arguments and being sent to an open field with a height barrier) at 8.40pm. No way a non wheelchair user with a blue badge could get to the entrance from where we parked. Another 2 hour queue to leave the site. Horrendous all round.

Access

So there was lots of gravel to get from car park to entrance (really difficult for powerchairs). There was tracking in some areas at the bowl, but not at the start. They hadn’t used accessible covers for the power cables, too steep and my powerchair did tip a bit. Once we finally got to the access platform, the member of staff leant in my joystick and caused an emergency shut off for my chair. Very nearly broke the whole joystick. The platform was chaos. No spaces clearly allocated (despite us booking). Squeezed us in at the back. But then when people returned no way I could leave. The bar had zero access. I don’t even know where the merchandise was. There were no chairs left when we arrived. We asked for a chair for my PA (the people raised behind us understandably got upset when she stood as they couldn’t see) bug none came at all. She had to stand about 10 metres plus away or perch on a metal pole. We saw other PA’s sitting on the floor or standing. We decided to leave just before the last song so we could get out easier. All went well until we got to the accessible exit. Here the staff refused to allow disabled people into a safe area or to use their exit to leave. Instead leaving us sat/stood on a path where we were now in a crush of people trying to leave, falling into us, pushing etcetera. In the end my wife and a few of us took people power and just barged our way through. Apparently it was too dangerous for us to be near the service road we came in on ‘in case’ the artists wanted to leave. I’m sorry but people’s safety from crushing etcetera should come before us walking/rolling on a 5mph road which might mean someone needs to wait a couple of minutes in a vehicle. (No vehicles used the road at any point whilst we were there). I really like Muse, but having missed a good half hour of their set and experiencing dangerous crowd issues (which staff were clueless on how to manage) I would suggest this venue avoided at all costs.

Toilets

All loos were portaloo style and therefore no adequate grab rails. Not enough room for a powerchair and transfer, no running water etc. No space for transfer of carer. No changing places. They were in a really poor state, I used them because I had to. If I could have not, I would have not used them.

Staff

There’s one star here, because Aoife in the car park was amazing. However all other staff urgently need disability awareness training and crowd management training. Especially if running a viewing platform, staff should know not to lean on any part of a person’s chair, but specifically not a joystick.

Photos