Sledgehammers and aeroplane signs:

Liverpool’s nightlife must do more to accommodate disability

Written for The Liverpool Post, 22/11/22

My partner, Vie, and I met during lockdown. We chatted online and over the phone before being able to meet in person when the support bubbles were allowed (remember those?). This meant that we didn’t get the chance to go out in the traditional sense for pretty much the first year of our relationship. We couldn’t share the things that we liked doing; which meant no £2 pints of McEwan’s in Ye Crake, no pricier-but-equally-delicious cocktails in Café Tabac! Our favourite places in town were all shut.

There were upsides, though — it made for an intimate start; there was no debate over where to go or what to do, because we had no options. We only had each other. When things began to reopen, we were cautious, but excited nonetheless.

But that excitement was complicated by the facts of our bodies. We are both disabled, I was born with one hand, and Vie has fibromyalgia brought on by Long COVID.

These bring certain challenges when going out. Vie can’t stand for very long as their legs start hurting unbearably, so they use a wheelchair when going to places where we’re less sure about having comfortable seating. One of the events I was most excited about showing Vie was Sonic Yootha, a queer dance party at 24 Kitchen Street. Yootha is a chaotic night, in the best possible way. Think: a sweaty room of glittered crop tops and neon nails; people of all backgrounds pulsing to the beat of new wave and disco and pop. As a space it prides itself on openness, but we had worries. 24 Kitchen Street is awkwardly built, chiselled out of a small, decaying warehouse in the Baltic. Its floors are cobbled and its small steps are awkward. Walking through can be an obstacle course when it’s dark and it’s busy. It isn’t exactly built for a wheelchair.


We’re aware that spaces like this aren’t built with our bodies in mind, but it does make you stop to pause. Often places don’t share their accessibility features online, which makes planning a night out replete with anxiety. An audit commissioned by the Department for Work and Pensions in 2014 found that 40% of restaurants didn’t have an accessible toilet, despite the requirement under the Equality Act that “reasonable adjustments” be made. It leaves disabled people feeling forgotten.

This is a pervasive cultural feeling. Gabrielle de la Puente of art critic duo The White Pube, who has chronic pain and fatigue disorder POTS, recently wrote a blog post about disabled people being forgotten about in public spaces. She used the lens of her experience at the Turner Prize show at Tate Liverpool, describing how “finding no accommodations have been made can feel hostile, and ultimately it can get in the way of my ability to engage with an artwork.” To put it bluntly, she argued that why should disabled people think it’s even worth the “taxi fare” to support these events if they can’t trust they will be accommodated. A fair point.

From experience of working as a bartender, catering for disabled customers is seldom mentioned, and in reaching out to venues nowhere was able to detail specific training offered to staff. The Post spoke to George Griffin from Meraki in the North Docks (near the Ten Streets development). Meraki is known for tracking the diversity of those hosting events in their space, publishing quarterly reports on the variations of gender and racial representation. The reports do not include disability though, and in asking why, we find an answer for a lot of the lack of preparedness when it comes to accessibility in independent venues. 

These places are tightly run and don’t have the time or resources to change. “The venue is run by 3 people with only one full-time employee, so I’m sure you can imagine the time constraints that come with this to keep the venue ticking over,” Griffin says. They pointed out the challenges of tracking disabled attendance compared to characteristics like race and gender — not having the capacity to reach out to every promoter, artist and performer to ask them to self-identity —  as such leaving diversity tracking to assumed, visible characteristics. “For the most part those characteristic groups [such as disability] are hidden and thus would require direct outreach to each performer or artist to confirm,” Griffin adds. For what it’s worth, Meraki is easily wheelchair accessible, and it says that on their Google information, though not on their website.

Since a lot of disabilities are not so visible, and every disabled body is unique, we all have bespoke needs. But spaces can’t plan for all needs. They only have sledgehammers. They do the broadest, most obvious things: wheelchair access and notes on social media about “everyone being welcome”. People will interact with mine and my partner’s disabilities quite differently. Mine is super visible and I do nothing to hide it, you look at my upper body and you will see that my left arm is half the length of my right. I will get asked if I need help carrying things, opening doors, pulling a chair out for myself. I don’t usually help with these kinds of things (sometimes carrying stuff). I can say “no” and it will be fine.

My partner does struggle with these things more, they cause chronic internal pain. Standing on their own, there is no outward sign of disability, so will not be immediately helped even if they are struggling. If they have their wheelchair, we’ll be pounced on by staff, trying their best to accommodate. But a strange thing happens with a person in a wheelchair, they can’t turn down offers of assistance. People will move the chair without asking, if Vie says they can walk a part of a journey, that will be ignored, even if that makes it much harder. The chair as the icon of disability brings out attention that is not always asked for.

When we arrived at Sonic Yootha, we were swarmed by bouncers, event promoters, and the duty manager, all trying to help, but also slightly getting in the way of us just entering the venue to experience the night. We didn’t need anything yet, but at least we knew that they were aware of us, and that we might need something. Before coming to that night, via 24 Kitchen Street’s Instagram, we found a fairly detailed Access Information document, a thing many venues do not have. From this, we knew that the venus would only be semi-accessible for Vie’s wheelchair.

We mostly sat out in the smoking area at the front of the main entrance. When Vie wanted to go to the bathroom, three bouncers took them around to the step-free access, on the other side of the building, inside. There was a small path between the dance floor and the toilet. Attempting to navigate uneven flooring, one bouncer walked in front gesturing his hands. Vie described it as  “guiding an aeroplane to land.” They were trying to be careful, but it was a bit overkill. Vie told the bouncers that they were happy to stand and walk the very short distance left, but the staff insisted. Vie was left feeling unheard and somewhat embarrassed. They had tried to help, clearly, but they actually ignored the specific needs of the person in front of them.

While 24 Kitchen Street has more thought-out accessibility policy than most other venues, in practice, it still felt ad hoc, a little improvised. We had a fun night and the staff were largely great, I was so happy to have shown Vie one of the best nights out in Liverpool! Speaking briefly to The Post, 24 Kitchen Street management reiterated their commitment to welcoming everyone to their venue, and said that there is infrastructure in place for a lift to their new upstairs bar, but are waiting for planning permission to complete.

You don’t get a lot of people with access needs coming to nights like these, the buildings aren’t built for us, the staff are not used to adapting, and the whole thing becomes an ouroboros, eating its own tail. 25% of disabled people have had bad perceived negative attitudes from hospitality staff, according to a survey from charity SCOPE from this year, with 23% avoiding going out to socialise (increasing to 35% amongst disabled people, where their disability might isolate them more from their peers). If nothing breaks that cycle, more disabled people will become more isolated from public social spaces.

All venues should be publishing information about access online, like 24 Kitchen Street does, surely. There should be regular training for staff, and they should ask people what their needs are, rather than assume. We deserve to feel safe and able to participate in social spaces — naturally, some creaky old 18th century buildings are going to be easy to adapt and certain independent venues are already stretched resource-wise —  but more can be done to hear our voices and simply listen. Because that’s what it’s ultimately about: listening. Then maybe we’d be confident going out into a city where we once felt welcome.