ExCeL London

Excel is an exhibition centre. I attended the first day of Disability Expo there. While on paper Excel looks accessible, apart from the step free access, the venue is very disappointing regarding access.

I went to two different events over a total of 4 days. Whilst the venue is mostly step free it has a long way to go to be fully accessible. The venue is huge and therefore not good if you are unable to walk far. I didn’t see any of their scooters being used although my friend was told none were available. They do definitively have some manual wheelchairs. There are not many seats available. Food and drink options are very limited and have very large queues with no option to sit or get seen early if you need to. Not good for coeliacs (no safe options). I did not find any accessible queues and staff I spoke to were quite unhelpful when I asked to use an access queue as I couldn’t sit in the cold for long.

ExCel is pretty accessible as it's predominantly on the one level and has a wide 'boulevard' between the different halls and exhibition spaces. It's pretty big though - and even has two DLR stations - so it's really helpful to know which one to use before you get there.