Photo: Joost Crop / Unsplash — Opéra de Paris
The Royal Opera House's Mirrorbox project brought messages from people living with ME and Long Covid to the places they love but can no longer physically visit. It's a thoughtful model. It also exposes a difficult Equality Act question: when is virtual participation a good reasonable adjustment, and when does it risk becoming second-best access?
A project about absence from public places
The Royal Opera House hosted ‘I would be here if I could: The Mirrorbox’ on 12 and 13 September 2026. The installation carries messages from people living with ME and Long Covid to places they love but can no longer physically reach. At the Royal Opera House, visitors could hear a message from Charlotte W, who chose the venue as a place she loves but can no longer visit.
The project also allowed people who couldn't attend in person to listen to the message online and send a digital postcard in response. On Sunday 13 September, the exhibition opened an hour early for visitors with access needs.
This is a cultural project, but the legal question is real
Mirrorbox isn't a court case and the Royal Opera House hasn't been found to have breached the Equality Act. But the project illustrates a difficult issue that service providers increasingly face: what should happen where disability makes physical attendance very difficult, intermittent or impossible?
Can remote participation be the reasonable adjustment? Sometimes, yes. But not automatically.
The 2026 EHRC Code gives unusually direct guidance
The current EHRC Services Code says the purpose of the reasonable-adjustments duty is to give disabled people access and, as far as reasonably possible, an experience close to the standard offered to non-disabled people.
It also says that where a physical feature creates a substantial disadvantage, an alternative method of providing the service can be considered. Crucially, the Code states that arranging for an in-person service to be provided virtually will only be a reasonable alternative if there's no reasonable way of giving the disabled person physical access to the service.
That sentence matters. It isn't permission to default to a virtual option when fixing the physical barrier would be inconvenient. It's a test.
The full article examines when remote access genuinely helps, when it doesn't, how fluctuating conditions change the calculation, and the eight-point audit framework for Strategic Access clients.
Video calls, streaming, online tours and digital participation can be excellent adjustments. They may be exactly what a person with severe fatigue, post-exertional malaise, immune vulnerability, mobility impairment or fluctuating health needs. But they shouldn't automatically be used to avoid fixing a physical barrier that could reasonably be removed.
If a wheelchair user can't enter a venue because of a step, the answer shouldn't simply be ‘watch online’ if a reasonable physical solution exists.
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The full article examines when remote access genuinely expands disabled customers' options and when it reduces them, how fluctuating conditions like ME and Long Covid change the analysis, and why flexible ticketing rules are themselves a form of adjustment.
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What's in the full article
Remote access or avoidance?
The three questions that test whether virtual delivery is a genuine adjustment or a way round a fixable barrier. Where the line sits under the 2026 EHRC Code.
Fluctuating conditions
Why ME and Long Covid change the calculation. How ability varies day to day, and what service design needs to accommodate that — beyond the building itself.
The eight-point audit
A complete audit framework: premises, technology, ticketing, policy, and customer voice. The questions Strategic Access uses with every venue and events client.
Accessibility specialist and legal professional. Postgraduate legal qualifications, CEDR mediation accreditation. Experience in Court of Appeal and Supreme Court cases, contributions to House of Lords and Commons Select Committee proceedings. Director, Strategic Access Advisory Limited.
This article does not suggest that the Royal Opera House has breached the Equality Act. Mirrorbox is used as a positive operational example to examine the wider legal distinction between effective remote participation and using virtual access as a substitute where reasonable physical access could be provided. This article provides general legal and operational information and doesn't constitute legal advice. For organisation-specific guidance, contact us.