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# Thirty-Six Years After the ADA, Disabled Fans Are Still Begging for the Basics at Shows
- URL: https://electronicdispatch.com/thirty-six-years-after-the-ada-disabled-fans-are-still-begging-for-the-basics-at-shows/
- Published: 2026-11-06T03:10:53.000Z
- Updated: 2026-11-06T03:10:52.000Z
- Description: Rolling Stone's new feature says the quiet part out loud: disabled fans are still fighting for accessible ticketing, viewing platforms, and trained staff — 36 years after the ADA became law. That's not a venue problem anymore. It's a choice the industry keeps making.
- Author: Jazmine Gonzalez
- Tags: Opinion, Culture

**Rolling Stone just published a feature where disabled fans say the live music industry still treats basic accommodations like a courtesy instead of a requirement — thirty-six years after the Americans with Disabilities Act became law.** The headline quote is "we are not a pain in the ass," and it should sting a little, because it means fans are still having to make that argument in 2026.

## This was never supposed to still be a fight

The ADA passed in 1990\. Accessible ticketing, working viewing platforms, and staff who actually know the accommodations exist shouldn't be a rolling negotiation at every single venue, every single tour. **Thirty-six years is long enough that "we're still figuring it out" stopped being a real excuse a long time ago.**

## Dance music doesn't get a pass here

It's easy to read a story like this and file it under "general live music problem" and move on. Don't. Festivals are exactly the environment where accessibility gets hardest and most important at once — temporary infrastructure, massive crowds, sightlines built around a stage, not a seating chart. **If a scene built on the idea that everyone belongs on the floor can't get a disabled fan a working view of the stage, that's a credibility problem, not a logistics problem.**

![A dense crowd packed in front of a concert stage](https://thumb.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/f/fe/Crowd_at_Knebworth_House_-_Rolling_Stones_1976.jpg/1920px-Crowd_at_Knebworth_House_-_Rolling_Stones_1976.jpg)

A packed concert crowd — the exact environment where accessible sightlines and platforms matter most, and where they're most often missing. Photo: Sérgio Valle Duarte, CC BY 3.0, via Wikimedia Commons

## What "courtesy instead of requirement" actually looks like

- **Ticketing** — accessible seating that's an afterthought add-on instead of built into the on-sale from the start.
- **Viewing platforms** — present on paper, inconsistently staffed or positioned in practice.
- **Trained staff** — the difference between an accommodation that works and one that exists only in a policy PDF.

## The fix isn't a mystery

**Nothing in this feature describes a hard technical problem — it describes a prioritization problem.** Venues and promoters that treat accessibility as core infrastructure, budgeted and staffed the same as sound and lighting, don't generate these stories. The ones that treat it as a add-on do, every time. Thirty-six years in, disabled fans shouldn't still have to explain why they deserve to see the show too.

*Feature image: UAME Music Saves Ukraine, CC BY-SA 4.0, via Wikimedia Commons.*