Simone Ballatore
“A place for Sylvia, at the Taylor Swift concert and beyond. Fight to ensure that people with disabilities are not excluded from a culture that saves lives, which is a foothold for many like me.” The appeal, collected in a few hours by more than 33 thousand people, was submitted by Silvia Stoyanova, a 35-year-old woman from Vaprio d’Adda, province of Milan, who asks for (at least) another platform for the disabled in view of the only Italian scene of the American singer-songwriter , which has been missing for 13 years: July 13 and 14, 2024 are circled in red; Milan, San Siro stadium, destination. “I immediately wrote to the organization,” he explains, “that, like all disabled people in Italy, I had to fill out a questionnaire that could be downloaded from their website, attach a disability document and send it by e-mail. who arrive first and based on the degree of disability. I am 100% disabled and in a wheelchair.”
Answer: “Unfortunately, we cannot accept your request. The area designated for people with disabilities and their companions has a limited number of seats in accordance with the safety parameters. The requests received were more than enough to exhaust the available zone for now.” “And I can understand, given the rapid growth of the artist’s popularity, that he has not been to Italy for 13 years,” Silvia comments. we are not told how much they cost or how many seats there are for us, which, according to ministerial decrees, should be at least 270 for every 55,000. We expect more from San Siro: a capacity of 75,000, we learned indirectly that only 110 are expected.
Meanwhile, Sylvia also bought a ticket to the VIP area. “I spent 300 euros on the lawn, but at least I was sure that it was a wheelchair accessible area,” she explains. region””. But Sylvia disagrees and, together with her lawyer, has already sent an official notice to the organizers: “They also wrote to me not to contact them anymore, they will do this if there are places for the disabled or if there are more of them. I want to fight for this “if” to become something real.”
Start a petition on Change.org by putting your face on it, you are about to start a non-profit organization. “Because I collect a lot of stories similar to mine at other concerts and places of culture: that’s not how it works in Japan and the US.” A few days ago, another Silvia denounced the humiliation suffered at a concert in Fiesole, where the seats reserved for the disabled were “on the outer edges, behind iron bars.” “Another disabled girl, Simone, knew that Thirty Seconds to Mars would bring a few fans to the stage and contacted the manager to be among the lucky ones, getting a green light and a tip. In the end, she was blocked,” Silvia says again. asks for change: “Solutions can be found,” emphasizes Stoyanova. “We have a precedent thanks to the girl who fought for the second platform for the disabled in Verona Arena, we know that this is possible.” Among the 33,000 signatures, Carla’s gesture stands out: “To encourage the petition, she put her ticket up for sale: she will draw the name of one of the supporters and give her consent. The solidarity received gives us the strength to continue.” .
Since childhood, Silvia has lived for music: “My mother accompanied me to the very first concert, I was about 5 years old. I was front row in Ivana Spagna with a bracelet that I hoped I could wear. give it to her,” she smiles, “since then I have seen so much, from the Spice Girls to Britney Spears, always in the front row in wheelchairs. and we have VIP zones.”
Sylvia would also like to send her message to Taylor Swift: “In addition to her music, I love lyrics, analyze them, study them,” she emphasizes, “she fights for the rights of minorities, she is unusually generous. posted a video on Tik Tok quoting her words, hoping it would go viral for it to reach her. Taylor, you’ve always fought dragons with us, and we’ve fought them with you. Now we need your help, so we don’t. I don’t have a dream: not everyone has the opportunity to wait another 13 years.”