Task force sees COTA disability work as starting point for other venues, businesses

Praising the dozens of improvements made at Circuit of the Americas over the past year to address disability issues, members of a task force organized by the racetrack and concert venue want other Austin venues to use their work as a starting point for accessibility standards throughout the city.

Members of the task force and COTA leadership met Tuesday to discuss the changes made since early last year when the facility came under criticism for accessibility problems during the November 2021 concert by the Rolling Stones that drew more than 60,000 people.

The highest-profile critic was Bruce Elfant, who is Travis County’s tax assessor-collector and voter registrar. Elfant was on crutches at the time due to a broken ankle, and the mile-plus distance from the parking areas to his seat posed an unmanageable challenge. Elfant also said a tent dedicated to accessibility concerns was unstaffed, and that he saw other disabled patrons receiving poor service from staff charged with helping them.

COTA convened the task force following a letter from Elfant, who also made an appearance at the Music Commission to discuss the problems. Members of the local disability community and state experts in accessibility joined to help COTA work through the issues it faced.

At the start of the meeting, Bobby Epstein, founding partner at COTA, thanked the task force for helping the facility learn about the problems it was overlooking.

“We didn’t have the information we needed to do a good job. That’s the biggest difference, and you’ve been able to put us through a process that has challenged us and helped us do a better job, and brought awareness where it needed to be brought.”

Staff from assorted departments explained the many changes they’ve made and education they’ve received to be more aware of accessibility issues in the future.

Those changes included creating better pathways throughout the 1,600 acres of property, taking steps before major events to identify hazards and potential disability concerns, rebuilding the website to be more accessible for those with impairments and offer more information about accessibility resources, pushing ticket vendors to notify staff of events with large numbers of accessible seats sold, identifying areas in grass lots that are most friendly for disabled parking and shuttle pickups, and expanding the disabled platform and other accessible areas for “super show” concerts that take place during large racing events.

Task force members generally praised the changes with some recounting their experiences during recent events, noting that concerts at the amphitheater on-site tend to operate smoothly while race weekends present challenges from large numbers of newly trained staff unfamiliar with some policies and procedures.

Additional changes recommended at the meeting included having multiple sites with adult changing tables available, having one or more sensory rooms to help attendees with autism, and exploring staffing the guest services tents during major events with members from the local disability community.

Elfant said he hopes the task force’s work marks a beginning for ongoing work around disability at venues and other public places throughout Austin, noting that the Music Commission and the Mayor’s Committee for People With Disabilities are two places where that concept could be carried on.

“I wanted the deficiencies that I saw addressed, and more important was bringing in experts from around the state, not only to look at these issues, but (find) some solutions since they’ve been working with other public places for years and years,” he said.

“Like COTA, all of these venues want to be welcoming and accessible, but they don’t always know how. We want to help them and having disability experts will help them notice the very small things that might not affect a lot of people but will impact some.”

Oren Rosenthal, a Music Commission member who joined the task force, said he supports bringing the accessibility issue to concert promoters such as Live Nation and South by Southwest.

“I would like to see this consciousness spread to other venues in town. The contribution that COTA has made could set an example for others, so they see they shouldn’t view this work as a cost but an opportunity for great PR and to expand your customer base.”

Anna Panossian, major event finance officer for COTA, said an expansion of the task force’s scope and membership could be in order to help other major venues.

“This task force shouldn’t dismantle, in my opinion. I think it should expand so its focus is not just this venue, and I feel like if we collaborated with other venues to have a standard for Austin where we can set the standard that would be good,” she said. “We’ve made such headway, so let’s expand it to other venues and collaborate and eventually we can get to a place where we meet and talk about what’s been working well.”

Photo made available through a Creative Commons license. This story has been changed since publication to correct a typo.

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