Sporting Events And Accessibility
Going to sporting events in Seattle is an amazing experience that will give you everlasting joy, but there are some challenges people with disabilities face when attending.
One main obstacle faced when going to sporting venues is their accessibility of seating. There are only a few wheelchair specific seats available around CenturyLink Field. If you plan on transferring out of your walker/wheelchair, there aren’t specifically allocated places where you can leave your equipment in eyesight. However, staff can take your equipment to a storage room and return it to you during half-time or as requested.
An obstacle faced by people who find it hard to hear is that there is no captioning on any of the monitors located inside the stadium, which means that you can’t get the full game experience that everyone should be entitled to.
CenturyLink field did have great staff members who provided assistance. They wanted to make sure we had a positive experience, so they made everything as accessible as they could.
What the DO-IT program has taught us is that we need to be self-advocates for what we need, and that it is okay to ask for accommodations or help. Our disabilities do not define who we are or what we do.