BTR concert

I hope all of you saw that Kimberly and I had a wonderful time at the Big Time Rush concert at the Hollywood Casino Ampitheatre in St. Louis. The band was AMAZING, both in their interactions with Kimberly and in their performance! We loved it and hope to go again when they come back to this area.

Now, let's talk about accessibility. Overall, it was a positive experience, but there were some hiccups. We stayed at the Holiday Inn Express right next the Ampitheatre. It was old. They first gave us a regular room after I had reserved an accessible room with a roll-in shower. Unfortunately, when we got that error corrected and went to the accessible room, we were very dissappointed to see the size of the room. It was tiny. It had an accessible bathroom, but we barely had room to move around or to get it situated for sleeping. When I asked about larger rooms at checkout, they mentioned that the whole hotel was going under renovations in the fall, so the rooms will be bigger! We will definitely give it a try the next time we go to the Ampitheatre.

As for the concert experience; also overall positive, but a few disappointments. I guess the VIP experience was acceptable, but it was obvious they made no special accomodations for wheelchair users. The location of the VIP area was as far away from the entrance as possible. They had a golf cart to take those that could walk, but not one that could hold a chair so we were lucky enough to get to walk all the way around. Also, the exit out of the VIP tent was doable, but space was a problem. Then, when it was time to find our seats, the gate attendent told us we had to go a different way that we found to be blocked off. We had to go back and figure things out again. It was an easy fix, but a shame the attendent wasn't prepared with the correct information to help someone in a wheelchair. Finally, when we got to our seats, I was disappointed by how off center they were. Don't get me wrong, they were the best seats a wheelchair user could get, just too bad that's what we were limited to. Of course, Kimberly always sees the positive and she noticed that even if everyone in front of us stands up throughout the concert (and you know they did!), they would not be in our way!

The first picture is the line for the Meet and Greet where we got to meet the band. It was awesome. They were so nice and Kimberly got a hug from each of them! (see below) The middle picture shows the ramp she had to use to get to her seat and the last picture shows our view.

I put together a video of some highlights. Unfortunately, I forgot to put the part where one of the band members comes by and hugs Kimberly DURING the concert. So cool!

https://youtu.be/gR8Pm9FSmZs