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sasha_feather ([personal profile] sasha_feather) wrote2012-09-03 01:07 pm
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World Con and accessibility (or lack thereof)

As you probably know, I am one of a handful of people who run Access at WisCon. I've done this for a few years and learned a ton. Access initiatives at WisCon have largely been very successful and well-regarded.

Karen Moore recently went to WorldCon and was struck by the difference in the lack of accessibility there vs. at WisCon. She wrote us a letter to say so, and gave me permission to quote her letter in my blog. Excerpts from her letter follow:

----begin----

As difficult as it is to juggle 1,000 convention members through the Concourse Hotel’s [WisCon's event site] elevators, I have never seen a wheelchair or scooter user wait for 55 minutes to get onto an elevator at WisCon. I’ve seen that happen multiple times this weekend. It has never been necessary at WisCon to take one elevator to the ground floor, transfer to a second elevator to reach the below-ground floors, traverse a tunnel between two buildings to reach yet a third elevator in order to reach a different floor in the other building to go from one panel to the next. That is a frequent occurrence at WorldCon; in fact, one scooter user we spoke to had concluded that the best she could hope for was to be able to attend a panel in every other timeslot, because the lengthy waits at multiple elevators meant that it took her at least two full hours to navigate from one panel to the next one.

As much of a hurdle it was to move awareness of access into the forefront of people’s consciousness at WisCon, you achieved that very effectively, with announcements, signage, blue tape and multiple other means of communicating to the able-bodied that perhaps taking the stairs would not be a huge burden, and that it would be worthwhile to do so to free up elevator space for those who cannot move between floors in any other way. At WorldCon, there was nary a whisper of such messages, save for a brief blurb titled “Be Kind to your Wheel-Footed Friends” in the Saturday newsletter – and that was AFTER I buttonholed the con chair on Friday afternoon and gave him merry hell about it.

As challenging as it is to finagle a wheelchair/scooter parking spot in some of those oddly-shaped meeting rooms at the Concourse, you still manage to do so in every single one. There is absolutely NO awareness of the need for wheelie/scooter parking spaces at WorldCon. Wheelchair/scooter users are on their own to try to squeeze into space, move chairs around, and try to find a spot to settle.

And even though it is far from ideal for wheelchair/scooter users to have to use that little elevator to navigate the half-flight of stairs to reach the last two panel rooms on the first floor, at least there IS an elevator. There is at least one room in WorldCon’s venue that can ONLY be accessed if one can climb stairs, and they programmed events in that room in every single time slot of the entire con.

And finally, as much pushback as I know Access has gotten from within the committee over its mission, at least none of WisCon’s concom (that I know of) has ever seriously suggested developing an entire track of programming that doesn’t exist, located in a room that doesn’t exist, and then put the damn thing in the pocket program book, the online program and everywhere else. Evidently, someone in the WorldCon committee finds it immensely amusing to think of a convention member with no cartilage left in his hips struggling painfully down multiple escalators, across the tunnel, up more escalators, then searching through a maze of corridors for a program event, only to find a sign that essentially says “Ha, ha, gotcha, Sucker!” The con chair heard from me on that topic as well, by the way. His response? “Well, I’m sorry you don’t see the humor in it.”

-----end-------

WorldCon does have an accessibility department, but it sounds like it is not succeeding. It also sounds like, from this last paragraph, that the ConCom trolled its own membership.

I repost this here not to pick on WorldCon or to cause drama, but rather to say, here is a problem, at this covention and at others. What can we do to work on addressing this problem?

Initiatives at WisCon succeeded because of committed activists and allies. I suspect that each convention will need insiders on their con coms to bring initiatives forward-- that change will have to come from the inside.

At one convention that I won't name at present, I think that criticism around accessibility caused a very strong backlash, and that comparisons to WisCon only made the backlash worse. We were seen as condescending outsiders to their in group. My own perspective is that I have practical experience that I want to share, but, the criticism was not taken as constructive and relationships were damaged.

This is not my intention here. Better access improves things for everyone involved, and it is not as hard to implement as one might think.

Thoughts?
ckd: small blue foam shark (Default)

[personal profile] ckd 2012-09-11 04:14 pm (UTC)(link)
In particular, Arisia gave people an incentive to use the stairs by having a "Summit Mt. Arisia" event complete with water stations, signs showing how high you'd climbed, and a ribbon for reaching the top. This meant that people who might not have thought about stairs but could use them were more likely to know about them and use them for the entire con, saving space in the elevators for those who needed them more.

This wouldn't work for every con or every hotel, but it's one example of the creative thinking that can be applied to access issues.

(Anonymous) 2012-09-15 02:23 am (UTC)(link)
Complain about what the committee did. Don't make up stories about what they thought. It doesn't promote mutual understanding.

Odds that they consciously decided to write off disabled attendees because it would be too much trouble to plan for them: approximately zero.

Also, I'll bet you a pound of good chocolate that the fake programming track and disability access fell under two different departments.

Negligence in not planning for elevator crowding and disabled access when these are problems at almost every worldcon: definitely some.

Negligence in not planning around elevators when every worldcon held in that facility has had serious crowding and access problems: rather more.

Negligence in making a dumb joke in the program listings: IMO, best handled by requesting the next SMOFcon to explain it in detail to the responsible parties. Added benefit: all the other worldconrunners will get to hear it.

While we're on the subject, I'd like to note that the person in charge of programming made a complete botch of the pre-convention program participant questionnaires. I'd have sworn that that was a debugged technology. I'd also have sworn that anyone who knows anything about programming would be aware that first-round questionnaire results have to be edited, not just concatenated and sent out as the second-round questionnaire. I'm not the only one who noticed that bits of correspondence from first-round respondents to the committee were accidentally incorporated into the second questionnaire. Good thing none of them were notably sensitive or embarrassing, but that was purely a matter of luck.

My credentials: I was one of the electric scooter users at the convention, and it was my third worldcon at that site. I missed substantial portions of the convention because I couldn't get through the elevator jams.

(Anonymous) 2012-09-15 02:26 am (UTC)(link)
There's insider knowledge in fandom, but there isn't a lot of it, and it's not secret. Everyone who knows it, learned it on their own. If the process had been difficult or unpleasant, fandom would be a much smaller place.

If you don't find that satisfactory, consider joining the N3F.
meloukhia: Text: Everything you want: Right now! (Everything you want)

[personal profile] meloukhia 2012-09-15 03:24 am (UTC)(link)
My response to this entire comment can be summed up by '♥.'

London

(Anonymous) 2012-09-18 12:55 am (UTC)(link)
I looked at the London proposal earlier this year and did not note much, if anything, in the way of child care. I believe I send a suggestion then that, for an example of how to do it right, the planners look at WisCon. (If I have to explain why a .con needs childcare, then feh.)

- Ann Burlingham, Perry, NY

(frozen comment)

(Anonymous) 2012-09-19 06:13 am (UTC)(link)
Okay, since you asked --

My name is Teresa Nielsen Hayden. I've been in fandom since the late 1970s. I've helped run worldcons, smaller conventions, writers' workshops, SF-oriented online forums, and the Transatlantic Fan Fund. I've been nominated for the Hugo five times, and given the Skylark Award once. I can field-strip and clean a mimeograph, moderate a rambunctious panel, hold my own in a discussion of numbered fandoms, and throw an open room party. For some years now I've been a consulting editor for Tor Books. And I still have spells of feeling insecure and overwhelmed at conventions, just like everyone else.

Fandom is not a standoffish place. It's true that at conventions you'll see people talking to their old friends, but who'd want to hang out with people who didn't?

There is no inner mystery. There are only people. You don't get to know fandom; you get to know fans, and there are dozens of ways to do it. If you want to learn about fanspeak and fanhistory, it's vastly easier to do so now than it was when I was a neo, because so much older material is available online. If you don't want to learn it, that's fine too.

The main thing you have to do is want fandom. Not everyone does. Fandom knows that, so they don't push. Also, the fannish community is entirely made up of people who feel easily excludable, vaguely unwanted, and socially awkward. If you stand back and look uncomfortable, they'll hesitate to step forward. There's nothing personal about it. They start out being that awkward with everyone.

If you want fandom enough to not care that you're a neo, enough to get you to wade straight in, you'll discover that there are practically no barriers.

One (1) historical footnote. Over the decades, there've been various efforts to organize neo-welcoming activities. None of them have really worked out. The problem is structural: welcoming people because they're neos is not the same thing as getting to know them and making friends with them. The latter turns out to be a much better approach.
mme_hardy: White rose (Default)

Me, too

[personal profile] mme_hardy 2012-09-19 03:55 pm (UTC)(link)
I can't stand for long periods either. I bought this cane that folds out into a sling-seat. It has been a Godsend in so many contexts, from county fairs to grocery stores. It's lightweight but still, of course, adds to your overall carrying burden. Sigh.

Cons should be addressing "how not to make people stand up who can't", but I find this cane increases my ability to cope.

Re: Tape?

(Anonymous) 2012-09-22 10:18 am (UTC)(link)
I recently ran a (small, comparatively) convention that had this same problem. The way we solved it was having multiple white boards and moveable stands that we could use to put signs around the venue. There was a big whiteboard and pin-up board at the reg desk which had maps, anti-harrassment policy, day's programme in large print, and other stuff. People seemed to find it useful.

And on some occasions we cheated and blu-tacked things to the doors anyway, but that's really not an option I'd advocate.

As an aside, what is this magical blue tape? Is it blu-tack?

- PharaohKatt
feuervogel: photo of the statue of Victory and her chariot on the Brandenburg Gate (Default)

Re: London

[personal profile] feuervogel 2012-09-22 03:26 pm (UTC)(link)
I'm on the programming committee at a new convention in NC, and we do not offer child care because we can't afford to. There are state and city regulations that require us to use licensed child care providers at a certain ratio, and, according to the con chair, it would increase our liability insurance. Children are welcome, and several of our guest panelists had children with them (including one with a month-old baby), but logistically and financially, we can't offer child care. (Our ops director had a toddler. Fortunately, her husband was available to wrangle him.)

We're doing what we can to accommodate children and parents without having to wrangle the legal and liability issues of offering child care. Maybe in the future once we've got into the black on operating costs and can afford the increase in liability we will revisit this issue.

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