First and foremost I will state that Met Life Stadium in Rutherford, NJ is handicap accessible. I’m sure because of ADA guidelines they have to be. The personnel there are very helpful. The following is my experience when going to see The Rolling Stones on May 23, 2024.
In February I went online to Ticketmaster and looked for handicapped seats and couldn’t find any. I pulled up the seating chart and it looked like there were a very limited amount of tickets left. Then I went on Seat Geek, again looked at the seating chart, didn’t see any handicapped and started clicking on available seating. They seemed to have more seats available than Ticketmaster. I would have liked the floor but in my experience its no good if your in a wheelchair and everyone stands up and you can’t see. I bought two tickets, the first level after the floor, midstage, Row 15, seats 1 & 2 on the end.
As the concert approached in May, I called the stadium for information about the seats I bought. I was told that they weren’t accessible because there is a lot of stairs to get to them. I stated that when I went to buy tickets I did not see any handicapped seats. She informed me that somewhere on the side of the page to buy the tickets there was a little handicapped sign and I should have pressed on that. Regardless, I did not see this little symbol, sign or whatever and bought the above seats. She also told me what time the parking lot opened, two pm and the gates, five pm. I was told to arrive early and upon admission go straight to Guest Services and they would help me trade my seats for available handicapped seats, but the earlier I got there, the more likely I would be able to get the new accessible seats.
We did arrive early, when the parking lot opened, but the gates weren’t opening until six. We killed time by going to this much hyped shopping/sporting expereince next to the arena. Re-entering the parking lot we were instructed to wait on the line for handicapped admission. I was happy to hear that because the other lines were very long. We were the second people to arrive on that line. We met a wonderful man and his niece from the UK, he had a cane. They separated us into 2 ifferent lines, one for wheelchairs and the other for canes and walkers. We were first! Everyone so far is extremely helpful.
We arrive at Guest Services and again, extremely helpful and nice people. They assigned us handicapped seats in the same section as our tickets. Wherever your tickets were, there was a handicapped section for you. They were about 35 rows higher than our original seats but it was only for handicapped and companion, (Pete got a chair). it didn’t matter who was standing because you can see, plus there was room, you could breathe and was close to the rest rooms and food vendors. This handicapped area held about six couples and they were all redirected. I looked around and saw these accessible seats at the back of all the seating sections. There was an employee stationed at each one in case you needed help and they also kept other concert goers from entering the accessible area. All in all, as previously mentioned it was a great concert and I was pleased how they accommated all of us.
I do have some questions about these handicapped seats and specificallly the handicapped seating on the floor. Everyone we sat with were redirected from thier original tickets to these handicapped sections. Does that mean that they weren’t available to buy in the first place? When Guest Services reassigned our seats, I told them about Paul McCartney’s concert at Citifield in NY. They had raised platforms for handicapped seating down on the floor, (left, right, middle and all center stage) They pointed out that they also had them. If I had bought tickets on the floor, like I originally wanted to, I would have been reassigned to the handicapped seating on the floor. When I looked down to see where they were, I wouldn’t have wanted them at all! They were on the very far right and left side of the stage.
I’m sorry, Unaccecptable. WHY can’t handicapped people get really good unobstructed seats! I have written about this before and I will continue to.
By the way, the govenor of NJ got dropped off by limo and admitted to the VIP section up front.