A less-than-welcoming Coldplay experience

Samantha wanted to go to the Coldplay gig. Let's not judge her for that, a lot of people like Coldplay.

Trouble is, Samantha needed accessible tickets. And that's where things get bad. Very bad indeed.

She's tried to get tickets for London - where tickets for disabled people have to be ordered through the post, take a third of a year to arrive, and are tossed out without any regard to what the requirements of the gig-goer are (it seems the assumption is that you'll use a wheelchair, not that you might have vision problems, for example.)

So she tried for Manchester, and things were even worse, where the website does at least have a number for "ambulant disabled" [their term] gig-goers to call - not that anyone on that number can help, or appears to even be expecting the calls.

It's a pretty shabby tale from start to finish. I don't think any of us have much in the way of expectations of Ticketmaster or gigsandtours, but this is a new level of misery creation.