TW: Mentions of ableism, severe depression, suicidal thoughts and ideation.

Us international Taylor Swift fans have been waiting for The ERAS Tour to come and visit us for months and finally, we have dates! (Through some bizarre twist of fate, the announcement, the registration, the extra dates announcement, and the opening of resale tickets all occurred while I was at therapy, so I don’t think it would surprise anyone to learn that I rescheduled the sessions that were booked for the days of the actual ticket sales – thank god for my very understanding therapist).

So the tour is coming – possibly the most exciting event of next year – but before I could be excited about that, the ticket sales had to be navigated. And given how horrific the US sale had been, I was – at the very least – very apprehensive. I hoped that, after the previous fiascos, this sale would be smoother but, having witnessed the anxiety and misery and disappointment, I couldn’t help but worry that this sale would be just as bad, with the added hurdle of trying to get accessible seating.

Having pre-ordered the Midnights album during the period in which it granted you a code for tour dates, I had access to the ticket sales a week earlier than the ticket sales for which you had to register. That was definitely helpful, in some ways at least. In the week leading up to this first sale, my Mum and I spoke to the Wembley accessibility people several times, trying to get the most accurate information about getting tickets through them. My Mum had to actually make the calls since making a phone call is something that is a real struggle for me as an autistic person, especially when the phone call has high stakes or I have anxiety about it (I can handle other forms of communication – I just can’t gather enough information from just a voice to keep up a conversation in real time and the anxiety of screwing up just makes the processing worse and the whole thing snowballs until I become non-verbal or descend into a meltdown). So Mum made the phone calls and we tried to get the clearest picture we could, but the information changed with every call and, on the Friday (with the tickets going on sale on Monday morning), they still weren’t sure of anything. They were really only certain of one thing: they were very, very aware of how high the demand was, part of the reason why they were so reluctant to commit to any of the information they did have. It was very stressful and I spent the weekend consumed with anxiety over whether or not I would be able to get tickets to even one show, having hoped to go a couple of times with different friends and family members. The dread I felt at the thought of not getting to go was paralysing.

Most people don’t seem to understand the intensity of my emotions. Technically, it could be part of being neurodivergent or mentally ill but it’s always just felt like part of me: it’s me, hi, I feel everything at 500%, it’s me. I feel every emotion with my whole body; it’s just always been that way. And people have always been weird about it (especially when it comes to loving Taylor actually – I’ve been mocked and harassed for years for being a fan of hers, often for reasons that completely baffle me). It hurts – and that hurt is very intense too – but I’d always rather love things, regardless of what people say. Taylor and her music (and seeing her live) are and always have been so important to me, getting me through hard times and bringing me such life affirming joy; as hard as it can be, it doesn’t surprise me that the thought of not getting to see her live after waiting so long feels like a lifeline being cut.

Monday morning, I woke up so anxious that I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t do anything. When the time came, when the online queue and phone lines ‘opened,’ Mum rang the accessibility number. It rang and rang until it went through to an automated message before hanging up. We tried again. And again and again and again. We kept getting the same message and we were still calling when the queue moved from the first of the Wembley shows in June to the first of the Wembley shows in August in the early afternoon. We were still calling as the clock inched towards five and the closing of the phone lines. I’d been sitting with Mum, unable to do anything and on the edge of the meltdown all day. I was exhausted, in pain, and swinging between misery and rage, in tears over how awful the experience was. It was (and still is) so desperately distressing that it seemed literally impossible to get a ticket for accessible seating, to access the concerts as a disabled person. It just felt – and feels – like yet another part of the world telling us that we’re not worth the effort, that we don’t matter as much as everyone else. It’s a deeply hopeless feeling. And as if the situation wasn’t hard enough on its own, I’ve been struggling with suicidal thoughts and impulses for a while now and between the dwindling possibility of getting accessible tickets and the crushing display of ableism, those thoughts were only getting louder and more difficult to block out.

Tuesday was more of the same, just with an awful day and awful night’s sleep under my belt. Mum and I were glued to the sofa again, calling over and over and over. Morning turned into afternoon, another show disappearing. Wembley Stadium had tweeted a response to the criticism on social media: “Due to unprecedented demand waiting time for Taylor Swift | The Eras Tour Disabled Access is longer than normal. For those unable to wait on the phone we have a call-back system.” Seeing that filled me with the urge to throw my phone across the room: when we’d spoken to them, the ‘unprecedented demand’ was the only thing they had known about. I wanted to scream.

The night before, a friend had suggested looking at Twitter to see if other disabled fans had posted about having a similar experience. I didn’t remember her suggestion until the afternoon but once I did, I went searching and found my experience repeated over and over. On one hand, it was reassuring because I wasn’t alone but on the other, here was this huge number of people who weren’t able to get tickets because Wembley’s accessibility department wasn’t doing its job. I spent the afternoon tweeting back and forth with this group of people: trying to find a better way, sharing different phone numbers that different people had had success with, updating each other on our progress, sharing the successes and the miseries and frustrations. One fan, Faith Martin (she wrote a great piece for Metro about what the experience was like was disabled fans), spent an amazing amount of time trying to help people get tickets, long after she got tickets for herself; I really appreciated her support and encouragement. (I’m sure there were other fans doing this, helping other fans for other UK venues but Faith is the person I saw doing this, the person who helped me.) Having that little community in such a fraught time was comforting; I’ve never had anything like that before.

Eventually, just before the lines closed for the day, we got through and were finally, finally able to get tickets. When my Mum hung up the phone and triumphantly announced that we had tickets, I collapsed back onto the sofa and burst into tears. I was overwhelmingly relieved but also totally overwhelmed by the exhaustion and anxiety making my hands shake, by the excruciating pain in my limbs, back, neck, and skull. But most of all, I was just completely overwhelmed by how hurt I felt by the ableism of the process (especially compared to the ease of the online general ticket sale), by how little my very existence meant to them even though I was paying them for the space I would be inhabiting. God, you know it’s bad when you’re paying to take up space and still no one cares because of the ‘inconvenience’ you present. I was pleased – of course, I was – but all the other big emotions were drowning it out. I knew I’d be thrilled later on, once I’d recovered from the unbelievable stress of those two days.

And it’s true. It took a couple of weeks to fully return to my day-to-day state but now that I have, I am really, really excited. But having said that – and I know I’ll say it a lot over the next year – I still feel hurt by how Wembley handled it all, how they treated their disabled patrons. I’m hurt and I’m angry and if there was anything I could do that would affect any change, that would be more than me simply shouting into the void, then I’d do it. Without a second thought. But if there is, I have no idea what it would be. So here I am, sharing my experience about, if only to remind people that this sort of thing – and worse, of course, much, much worse – happens every day. Even the processes set up supposedly to help us are failing us, and worse, hurting us.

I’ll leave you with what I tweeted after I got my tickets: “I knew that getting #ErasTour tickets would be hard but I didn’t expect the level of ableism. By making it so much harder for us, they’re essentially telling us that we aren’t as important as everyone else, that we don’t matter as much, and that was deeply, deeply upsetting.”

And here are some of the articles that have been written about this, including the experiences of several disabled fans. (Note: please don’t read the comments sections of these articles because the dismissive, ableist bile coming from people – most of whom are totally missing the point – is honestly painful and there is no reason to subject yourself to that if you don’t have to.)

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