Hi all, so I've been having quite the time with advocacy for our ADA rights at various venues over the past few months. After a long battle and lots of back and forth with MGM, I finally got them to provide assistive listening devices for audio description/radio play-by-play at T-Mobile Arena in Las Vegas for hockey games and any other events that lend themselves to being accessible to all via description. I decided to push just a bit further and go for getting audio description set up for shows that I miss dearly since losing my vision, anything by Cirque du Soleil.

Cirque has been notorious for disregarding making their shows accessible with audio description, whether the shows on the Las Vegas Strip or the travelling big top. They always claim it can't be done since the show changes so frequently, not understanding how live audio describers are trained and how on-the-fly description is totally doable for the sake of making their shows fully inclusive. Using the momentum from the T-Mobile Arena issue, I pushed again on the MGM legal counsel to assert ADA compliance for the show my partner and I really wanted to see, the adult Zumanity show at the New York, New York Hotel. We knew one of the audio describers for the Smith Center who was available during the time we were going to be visiting, and after a few weeks of waiting and pushing, I'm happy to say that we accomplished our goal and got Cirque to set up the first audio described performance of any of their shows ever!

My initial request got lost when the show production manager got switched to another show, and the new one learned about my request just a few days before we arrived. I spoke with him on the phone and he really wanted to do his best to accommodate us and fully understood the benefits of having a fully inclusive show, plus resonated with the fact that I've been a Cirque fan all my life and really just didn't want to miss out on them anymore. In a matter of days and more back and forth, we had it all set up. They had a clear com system line and a radio for me when we got to the venue, the audio describer had showed up for the early show to get a sense of it and write her script, we met them all and made our way to our seats, they set the describer up in the lighting and sound booth with a clear view of us and the stage and a mic set to the open communication channel of the radio they gave me, and the describer did an absolutely brilliant job calling the show on the fly. Evidently the late Zumanity show was quite different from the early show, but I never would have guessed with how fluid she was with her description. We loved the show and the experience, had a great post-mortem after the show ended talking with the crew about the experience and how to move forward with getting this ready for the rest of their shows on the Strip, and chalked the whole night up as a win for accessibility!

If any of you find yrselves in Vegas and want to catch an awesome sex-positive show, or know of blind people who will be in the area and open to the idea, Zumanity is now available with audio description! Request it when getting tickets over the phone and let's show them that people actually want and need this and it only serves to open the show up to more people! The production manager who worked with us was going to bring these results to the main office for Cirque and try getting accessibility and AD more prevalent, and that is a marked difference from how silent Cirque has been on the issue before. Will be great to keep this updated, and never fear pushing for your ADA rights when something comes up that you want to check out. Persistence and positive constructive discussion fixes everything. Would love to hear other's experiences if you check out the show and get it with AD.