Continuing from my Las Vegas Debacle post, this was a major win all around for accessibility. After going through that entire ordeal, we came home quite angry. I was not satisfied with how we were treated and the overall outcome of the experience. I decided to push, and push hard on the Knights and the T-Mobile Arena staff.
I contacted the Las Vegas Council of the Blind and was put in touch with an amazing ADA lawyer named Suzanne Thomas. She listened to my story and started working through her contacts to help make our trip right. I didn’t just want restitution, but absolutely wanted T-Mobile Arena to comply with ADA law and get their building set up with the tech they lied to us about. I wanted that building to be properly accessible for all blind hockey fans and for attendees that needed audio description for any other events held there.
A long bout of back and forth emails and phone calls ensued, working through details with Suzanne while dealing with the VP of Counsel from MGM, the owners of T-Mobile Arena.
After a lot of stress and constructive talks, MGM relented and installed and tested the very system they claimed they had months and months earlier. The next Sharks away game in Vegas was on March 31st, so we used that as a compliance deadline. After some hiccups, and getting reports back from a blind hockey fan in Vegas that the system was working correctly, we went down to Vegas again for that very game.
It all worked somewhat as expected. The assistive listening device was indeed giving a call of the game, but it was tapped into the unedited TV announcer feed. I was able to hear the TV call and then the “off air” banter between the commentators during commercial breaks. This was not expected as the TV announcers are not nearly as descriptive nor as fast as radio play-by-play announcers and I brought this issue up with the manager handling our situation. Hopefully in the upcoming season, the assistive listening devices have been set to carry the radio call.
The only other issue is that the arena itself is really really loud. Sitting in the lower sections 16 rows from the glass provided for a very difficult experience when trying to listen to the assistive listening device. Not much they can do about that honestly, but it is something to note to fans attending that require the devices. I wish we had been sitting in an ADA section farther back from the crowd as I was practically losing my hearing with how loud I had to have the device set just to make anything out over the crowd noise and the music. The music within the arena could Definitely be lowered. Between plays was when I was struggling the most with the device, trying ardently to hear the announcer replay of the action while extremely loud EDM was pulsing around me. Another issue I brought up with the managers.
All in all, the devices worked, although I was unable to test the staff on whether or not they knew about the devices and how they functioned as the manager handling us took it upon himself to get the devices from the Guest Services booth. That encounter was awkward but he understood my misgivings with how he handled that situation. This coming season, I do hope that they keep their entire public-facing staff trained and up-to-date on ADA law and with disability sensitivity training.
Due to our efforts, blind and visually impaired hockey fans can now attend T-Mobile Arena, get the assistive listening devices from Guest Services and have them set to the play-by-play and enjoy the games. Non-hockey events such as concerts and shows that could benefit from audio description are now possible to be enjoyed by the same blind/VI attendees provided they give enough heads up to the T-Mobile Arena staff and to the amazing audio describers from the Smith Center. I’ll be singling one of them out in a future post!