Overview

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.

Transport & Parking

There is NO parking for WAV (wheelchair accessible vehicles). There are two DLR stations, one each end. Hence a very large building.

Access

It was mostly flat once inside, but slopes at one entrance. The East entrance does not currently have any step free access (January 2023) and can only be accessed via a local hotel. There aren’t many seats. Lifts are small and often in use so quite a wait.

Toilets

Firstly the changing places is NOT a changing places. It as at the east end which is the opposite end to where the staff are who you need to open it, if there’s any around. It is security locked and there are no grab rails or height adjustable sink. There is not much transfer space for the loo, a trolley not a changing bed, no way to clean it, no red cord, no screen and the hoist was out of order when we were there. It does not appear to be checked regularly. There are very few other accessible loos. None of which I saw have side transfer spaces, unless you’re a child. Less than one per hall. One of the events I was at used around 6/7 of the halls in one side and had three available accessible loos!! There is one accessible loo down the lift, but really poor standard in size and availability.

Staff

Some staff were lovely but I often got stuck desperate for the loo without one being available. Some staff don’t allow access to accessible loos and not sure why. I was chased by a security guard who tried to prevent me returning to my car. I asked for a manager to be called to the changing places to give us keys and no one came. We gave up after 50 minutes.