Reasonable adjustments

@MySugarBabyLove I thought about it just fine before I said group.

I have no idea if it is a family group or of it is carers and their clients, that's why I used the term group.

I am well aware that the people using the shakers may well have not been able to comprehend the disruption caused but parts of their group certainly could.

I totally disagree, people get very pissed off about being sat behind a tall person, I'm pretty sure I've read threads on it on here even. It certainly pisses me off, I can't do anything about it but it's just as annoying as kids running around or people making a lot of noise. None of them can help it but it's still very annoying.

Excellent thread.

For example reasonable adjustments may mean that you out a lift in a venue that only has stairs and a cafe upstairs.

It would be unreasonable to remove the stairs to put the lift there and refuse to allow anyone who isn't disabled to use the lift.

It's about creating equal access. Not about giving people with disabilities a right to remove the enjoyment of others to attend events.

I get how hard it is to have a disability. My ds is disabled (physical and autistic).

But he wants equal access not priority access because that doesn't do anything for inclusion. It further stigmatises and minoritises the group.

And he'd HATE peoples playing shakers at the theatre. That's against the rules. 🤣

The people I have a problem with here aren't the disabled people, aren't the theatre, but whoever organised this group outing knowing full well that this group would struggle with it and need to make a lot of noisy stimming to be able to cope.

If the group were keen to go and it was something they were interested in (which if they were autistic then a crowded theatre with loud noises may be the last place they'd actually choose to be) then why not contact the theatre and discuss how their needs/impact on others could be best accommodated for the benefit of everyone.

I think it's interesting that as a society we accept that tall people can do nothing about their height, that they are also entitled to see the show even though their presence impedes my enjoyment and being able to see. But we are ok with that. But someone making some noise in order to watch is a disgrace and they should be sent to the relaxed version. The relaxed version should probably also not be as loud to help those who don't like noises, should have the house lights up for safety and allow children run around because it's relaxed.

This.

Our local theatre does a relaxed show

I don't see this as a disability bashing thread because it's not a clearcut disabled access issue. It's looking at how a range of access needs are catered for in a setting like a theatre. this is MN. It wil absolutely turn into an increasingly disablist thread and you know it.

In terms of reasonable adjustment, people are misunderstanding the term. A reasonable adjustment isn’t expecting everyone else to change their expectations to accommodate the person with a disability, a reasonable adjustment is an adjustment made in order to accommodate the perso with a disability.

So e.g. the reasonable adjustment would bbe to have a performance which is suited to the needs of the people who need to make noise. And for the terms to stipulate that noise won’t be permitted throughout the regular performance, but this needs to be stipulated to everyone at the time of booking, so that when you book you know what you’re up against, and you know that the expectation is for no noise.

So the group with the shakers are welcome to attend the regular performance, but if they want to use the shakers they need to attend the specialist performance, assuming there is one.

Let’s use another example. Guide dogs are permitted in most places, however they are not permitted in many zoos or parts of many zoos because of the stress caused to the animals. The reasonable adjustment tere is to say that the guide dog owner is welcome to bring the dog, and the dog will be looked after by the staff, while the guide dog owner can either go around with their own guide or the zoo will often provide one. Perfectly reasonable adjustment.

Also, the people saying that the group were incredibly selfish need to think about what they’re saying. A group of people who are shouting, using shakers, making noise throughout a performance very likely don’t have the same capacity as you or I, so if there is any responsibility to be had, that responsibility falls to the people who are caring for that group, not the group themselves.

This situation is why there are relaxed performances. Guests who aren’t able to be reasonably still and quiet during the show are encouraged to attend the relaxed performance. If you book for the standard show then it’s a reasonable expectation that you won’t make excessive noise or movement, and if you do you’ll be removed. It’s very selfish to attend a standard performance if you know you can’t comply with the behaviour expected. The people in question should have been removed for making noise.

Of course they have a right to attend.

But there is also the right for everyone else who paid to get enjoyment.

Only last week there was a news story about people being removed from a theatre for disrupting a show.

And I'd argue that if they needed entertainment to watch they weren't at something suitable for them.

I have a disabled child as well so come from both sides of this.

This is true but the ticket office wouldn’t be obliged to refund you/exchange your ticket. Disability rights of access are about making reasonable adjustments.
My personal thought is that it doesn’t feel like a particularly reasonable adjustment to let someone bring in and use a noise making device for self soothing to a theatre performance. It’s not a minor disruption to everyone sitting in the surrounding seats/potentially everyone in the whole section. I agree with others that having the show split to have a number of relaxed and a number of quiet performances would be a more reasonable adjustment. As long as it wasn’t just one quiet performance or just one relaxed one but relatively evenly split I can’t see why it would be an issue. That said we are going to a relaxed performance of the lion king soon & clearly it’s a relatively hard sell to get people to them since the tickets were less that half the price of other evenings. We’ve gone for it as taking younger children and it both means I won’t worry if they are not brilliantly behaved and that we will finish earlier as it starts an hour before the normal time that evening. I don’t think it’ll spoil the kids enjoyment and I’m going for them so it’s fine. If I’d paid upward of £100/ticket for the good seats at a show it would really bother me if I couldn’t hear parts of it over noise someone near me was making.

There should be (and usually are) accessible performances suitable for people with additional needs and that’s the performance they should go to. I work with people with autism and love seeing them enjoy things like that, they should of course have the chance to see the show, but only when suitable. I would be very annoyed if I’d paid loads for a professional show and had interruptions throughout at any other performance than the accessible one.

i agree with @Bumpitybumper; theatre is not like a train where most people want to make some noise - the significant majority of people going want quiet. The only ones that don’t either have additional needs or are inconsiderate. The grey ground amplified by the Manchester case is ‘audience enjoyment’ but it’s usually easy to tell which types of shows this could be an issue for. Even then, rather than have a couple of ‘quiet’ shows I would still tend towards a couple of ‘get up and dance/sing’ shows for those that want to to let down their hair. But I suspect those shows would be utterly horrific for everyone which demonstrates that most people who deliberately make noise through a show are just plain inconsiderate.

Those of you saying there's absolutely nothing wrong with booking seats for a standard performance, when you know that you or others in your group are incapable of attending without causing significant noise disruption, preventing a large number of other people accessing the service they've paid for, because disabled people have a right in law to access, whereas there's no right to enjoy a musical… I'm sure you think you're doing marvellous disability advocacy. What you're actually doing is risking fomenting a lot of unnecessary resentment and bad feeling towards disabled people.

I believe that, while lots of people might be ignorant about disability, have outdated attitudes or beliefs, or sometimes grumble about extra costs or inconvenience to themselves, most people do want disabled people to be able to access what everyone else can access, and most people are generally happy to deal with having to make some adjustments and being mildly inconvenienced from time to time. Most people voluntarily walk past the closer, accessible loo, most people wouldn't park in the marked accessible spaces even if there were no punishment, and most people will understand if their choice of standard performances is smaller because some have been adapted to specific needs.

What the general population won't accept is having no loos they're allowed to use, no car parking spaces they're permitted in, and no performances where they can expect a reasonably uninterrupted experience. If you push for that, you'll get massive resentment, indignation and pushback from the general public, and there's a lot more of them than there are of us.

The problem will be that vast majority of the public would prefer a guaranteed quiet performance when they are spending all that money on tickets. So inevitably those performances would get booked up and will not necessarily be available for those who absolutely need quiet.

Additional needs aren't just about making noise but can also be about needing quiet in the audience.

A theatre isn't your front room. It's a live communal experience.
From a performers point of view we accept whoever is out there - noisy eaters, whining kids, snorers, the "recite large chunks of Shakespeare along with the actor" people. Trust me, Wednesday matinees and school parties can be a bloody challenge but if theatre is to survive, audiences need to realise that they are not in a controlled environment.

I think it's a reasonable adjustment when it doesn't impact others in a negative way and it's something that can be avoided.

Taking noisy instruments to a theatre is always going to impact the experience for everyone negatively.

The vocal noises would be something that I'd accept as perfectly normal and although they'd impact the ability to hear properly I'd not be annoyed.

Noisy shakers being brought in is incredibly selfish of the group attending and that would annoy me. I don't think shakers in the audience at a theatre are reasonable under any circumstances. They could foresee how much they would impact the rest of the audience and just didn't care.

The quiet performances as an option isn't a bad idea. In general I don't think it's unreasonable for different places and different situations to have different rules and norms and for staff to enforce them where appropriate.

Thing is, for something like a concert or a west end show, tickets can be £££ and people may have travelled a long way, stayed overnight, waited months. It's not unreasonable to expect to be able to hear the performance and rearranging isn't realistic. If there are options for relaxed performances I would expect those to be used as appropriate.

Apologies, I meant to add that by having quiet performances the onus is on those who need them to book specific times, not on people with additional needs to book relaxed performances. This makes inclusion the default

I don't think it was 'reasonable' to allow someone to make such a racket during a performance. I think you should have been at least given the option of a refund, but preferably either made you aware offered 'seperate' sessions for these people. Grey probably ruined the experience for many people

I actually agree with the PP who suggested “quiet” performances where there is no singing along, getting up and down etc. My DD has autism and we were at a recent performance where there was a very drunk group of women behind us, standing up, singing along, saying the words with the actors. At one point I thought one of them was going to fall on top of us. My DD was so distressed I had to take her out. Whose enjoyment takes precedence? My DD was sitting quietly.

I think when the reasonable adjustments impact significantly on the enjoyment/participation of others then its not reasonable. And another solution would be to have an alternative, more relaxed performance where people are aware of this.

There was the incident where a Manchester theatre had to stop their performance of a musical a couple of weeks ago because people were singing loudly and it was distracting and people couldn't hear the actors. Surely the same could be said about people using loud instruments throughout, regardless of the reason.

@delilabell
You're starting to give off a "I'm not disabilist" vibe with all your friends and relatives
What a disgusting thing to insinuate! A decent proportion of the population are disabled (circa 20%) so I imagine most of us have a number of disabled friends and family or indeed are disabled themselves.

This is one of the biggest challenges with 'reasonable adjustments ' and happens alot in schools as well. Where the needs of two different groups or people are opposite how do you decide whose needs trump. A group like this can be very distressing to other people with different additional support needs. I agree that maybe the introduction of 'quiet performances' might work.