Category: venues

Nottingham Maze: access

Info date: October 2011.

In how this page is laid out, it’s slightly biased towards wheelchair users. There is also info about coming in the front way up the step, and about other stuff:

Sources of further assistance/wrangling
Request for feedback
Geography/layout
Front entrance step (see also “Front way in”, below)
Back entrance (wheelchair-friendly) and doorbell
Accessible toilet
Public transport (short summary; needs expanding)
Car parking
Front way in
Lighting
Seating
Thanks

Sources of further assistance/wrangling

If you’re coming to a gig which I’m playing at, and you have any access needs which I might be able to help wrangle, please get in touch if you’d like to, so we can confer beforehand.

Or, at any time you can of course contact the Maze venue management.

Request for feedback

The photos on this page are the result of me going on a little expedition in October 2011. This is only a first attempt; I’ve noted the omissions I’m aware of so far. If there’s any other info that would help and isn’t here, please comment, and I’ll aim to add more stuff
when I can find it out.

The venue people have been very helpful so far, and I’m happy to pass on practical suggestions to them, and to contribute small fixes myself if I’m allowed. I just need to make clear that this page is mine whereas the venue itself is not!

Now to the venue…

Geography/layout

The Maze is on the north side of Nottingham city centre, on Mansfield Road (shown in pic).

Photo: looking uphill towards traffic lights. Maze building on left hand side of road.

If you were walking up the road in this direction, it’s as if you’ve just come from the Victoria Centre (a large and well-known shopping centre). That’s just over half a mile behind you on the right hand side of the road. Even further behind you “as the crow flies” (though not along one straight road) would be the Market Square and then the railway station. Slope of the hill is about 1 in 20.

The traffic lights at the top of the hill are a junction. If you turn left at the lights, and then take the first left, you can get round the back of the venue. We’ll come to that in a bit.

In a sense, the Maze is only half the venue: the front half is the Forest Tavern and the back half is officially the Maze, the room where the gigs happen. The front does have a big sign up saying “The Maze”.

Photo: front of the building. A red door is flanked by windows. A sign above the door says "The Maze".

Front entrance step

At the front entrance, there’s a substantial doorstep into a hallway.

The first set of double doors is generally open whenever the venue’s open. The inner side of the hallway is another set of double doors, which open towards the outside.

Doorstep height: At the left hand end, about 24.5cm or 9½”. At the right hand end, about 16.5cm or 7½”. It’s the pavement which slopes, not the step.

Photo: Two double doors are open, swung out towards the viewer across a doorstep about 8 inches high. The front of the doorstep, and the edges of the open doors, line up with the edge of the pavement. Through the open doors we can see a square hallway and two closed double doors (which would also open towards the viewer). There are posters on the inner doors for events at the venue.

Apparently it has been known for people to carry their wheelchair-user friends up the step, but the next section describes how people can come in under their own steam via the back door.

Back entrance

Imagine we’ve just whizzed up to the traffic lights, turned left and left again, and ended up round the back. You’re now on North Sherwood Street, which runs parallel to Mansfield Road.

Photo: Back view of building. From left to right, double doors impeded by large bins, double doors which are the back entrance, sign on wall showing a map, single door presumably for staff use.

Photo: Double doors, and a sign with a map on it.

Photo: Map sign, illustrating the relationship between the Maze's back door and front door: turn left from the sign up North Sherwood Street, right at T onto Forest Road East, right onto Mansfield Road and it's on your right. Text on the map is 'Entrance is through the Forest Tavern' - meaning, most visitors will go in that way.

Now I regret I must show you a tragic sight, a bell which has apparently been vandalised, and has its wires hanging out!

Photo: Bell with loose wires. Caption is 'Uh-oh!'

UPDATE 21 September 2012: Latest here on new-doorbell acquisition

However, to guard against any further mishaps or vandalisms on the night, I’d also like to say that anyone who might be inconvenienced by a lack of bell is very welcome to make a fallback plan with me before the gig, probably including having my mobile number, or the mobile number of whoever I get to be in charge of access communications on the day.

When it’s working, the bell rings in the Forest Tavern (bar at the front), not the gigs room, and I’m told it’s clearly audible even over bar noise.

Anyway, let’s suppose for now that the bell system or other fall-back plan works OK: when the doors open, you’re looking down a long corridor which leads straight into the venue room. Both sides of the double door can open, although the pic doesn’t show this.

Photo: A series of four doorways, seen from outside the building. First are two sets of red doors, with only a couple of metres in between them. Past both of them is the concrete flooring of a passageway and small courtyard. Another doorway leads into the building. The most distant doorway is labelled 'gig room'.

The floor inside is concrete, and has a few small bumps and cracks,
nothing too major. This pic from slightly further in gives a better
view of the floor:

Photo: a small courtyard with concrete floor, with a wooden bench on the left. Ahead about 4 or 5 metres is an open door leading to inside the building.

Now imagine you’ve come into the gig room, and turned round to face the other way. On your left is the stage, on the right the door you came in at. Another bar is behind you.

[To be added: take a pic of this bar and see how possible it is for a wheelchair user to buy drinks there.]

Photo: stage on left and door on right, door labelled 'You came in here'.

If you were to go back out of the same door where you came into the gig room, you’d be here:

Photo: The accessible toilet is ahead and to your left, and directly ahead of you is the corridor with the back door at the end.

Accessible toilet

Here’s a couple of pix of the toilet. I’ll try to describe its features.

Photo: Toilet, with bars to help access. Description in text.

Using “left” and “right” as if you were sitting on the toilet:

  • On the left, a wall, with a horizontal bar at around elbow height for an average sized person.
  • Above that bar, a loo-roll dispenser.
  • On the right, a space, partially filled with a lidded bin. (Would I be right in supposing that this bin should really be somewhere else, to give room to transfer onto the loo? Could use some expert feedback on this.)
  • On the right, a movable bar, fixed to the wall behind the toilet. This bar can either be horizontal at similar height to the wall-fixed one, or rotated up towards the wall, out of the way.
  • On the right, fixed to the wall behind the toilet slightly further away than the movable bar, a vertical bar.
  • On the left, fixed to the wall at the far end of the horizontal bar, a vertical bar.
  • On the left, fixed to the wall beyond the bars, a small basin, with a mirror above.
  • On the left hand wall, furthest away past the basin, a paper-towel dispenser.
  • Beneath the paper-towel dispenser, a bucket (I think – or it could be another bin).

Photo: Toilet, with bars to help access. Description in text.

Public transport

I’m yet to write up the buses and trams. Short version: some of the Nottingham City Transport bus routes generally run only wheelchair-accessible buses, and I think that will include at least one of the routes that goes up Mansfield Road. The trams are 100% properly accessible but don’t run quite as near to the venue – there would still be some walking/wheeling afterwards.

Car parking

There’s one parking space just outside the back door. On the day I was there, this had a van parked in it.

Photo: Back view of building, showing van in parking space.

Photo: Back view of building. From left to right, double doors impeded by large bins, double doors which are the back entrance, sign on wall showing a map, single door presumably for staff use. In front of the building is one parking space marked with white lines on the road. In this pic, it's occupied by a van.

There were no free spaces further north up North Sherwood Street…

Photo: From the pavement, looking along and across a road, going off into the distance on your left. The direction along the road to the left is labelled "North". There are no parking spaces available. The Maze building is across the road, mostly not in the photo.

… or immediately south, at first…

Photo: From the pavement, looking along and across a road going off into the distance on your right. The direction along the road to the right is labelled "South". There are no parking spaces available. The Maze building is across the road, mostly not in the photo.

though a bit later, while I was still taking pictures, one of the cars in the previous picture had moved, leaving a space a little way south of the Maze on North Sherwood Street.

Photo: looking across a road, to a space in between two parked cars, big enough for one or two cars.

Mondays to Saturdays 9am till 5pm, some of these parking spaces are “Permit holders only” and some are “Maximum stay 2 hours”. After 5pm and on Sundays, these restrictions don’t apply.

There’s also a big Park and Ride car park on the Forest less than half a mile away.

For my own gig, I have the idea that if necessary, we may be able to wangle saving someone a parking spot on the street, e.g. by parking a car there in the afternoon and moving it when the person who needed the spot arrived.

Front way in

What about if you’re not on wheels (or you’re on very manoeuvrable wheels) and you’re coming in the front way?

Here’s that front entrance pic again:

Photo: Two double doors are open, swung out towards the viewer across a doorstep about 8 inches high. The front of the doorstep lines up with the edge of the pavement. Through the open doors we can see a square hallway and two closed double doors (which would also open towards the viewer). There are posters on the inner doors for events at the venue.

If you were to go through those inner double doors into the bar and turn immediately to your left, you’d find some tables and chairs, and a door on your right which leads through to the “gig side” of the venue.

Photo: In a pub room, on the right are some chairs around a table. On the left is another table. Ahead of you is space to walk or wheel. After going past the furniture, you can turn to the right and there's a doorway.

A short corridor leads directly into the room at the back. This corridor also has the “ordinary” toilets, on the right, though you can’t see them in the photo.

A doorway, with the door open, leads into a well-lit corridor. After perhaps 5 metres is another doorway.

As you come in the “main entrance” doorway of the gig room, there’s usually a small table fairly near the door, where someone might sit checking tickets and taking money:

Photo: Coming in the main entrance of the gig room, the tickets-and-money table is straight ahead of you a metre or two away, and the stage is perhaps 3 to 5 metres ahead of you and slightly to the right. Behind the small table is a cushioned seat fixed to the left hand wall. Other tables and chairs can be seen in front of the stage.

(This pic also shows again, to the right of the stage, the way through to the accessible toilet and back door.)

Lighting

The lighting in the gig room is fairly dim. It’s most noticeable when you come in the front way, because the corridor in between the two halves of the venue is well-lit. That last picture, showing the tickets-and-money table, was taken with flash (the rest weren’t).

The accessible toilet is also well lit. [Yet to add: pix & info describing the “ordinary” toilets.]

The front bar and the back corridor are in between – brighter than the gig room, dimmer than the accessible toilet.

Seating

There’s some built-in seating round the edges of the room. The middle bit may have chairs and tables set out, or not, depending on the gig. If there are some chairs and tables, there will also usually be some standing room behind them, and room for people to go to the bar.

If it’s a gig I’m playing at, I may be able to organise reserving seats for people who need them.

Thanks

Thanks to Steph at the Maze for helpful communications, and Kav for showing me round and opening doors during my photography expedition.

Thanks also to all the wheelchair users and other access activists who’ve given me my rudimentary understanding of what to look out for!