I noticed several years back that accessibility appears to have two parts: the physical makeup of the area, and the social and human ability to consider the issues.
A few years ago, Arisia in Boston was at a quirky Hyatt which is built something like a ziggaraut. It is gorgeous, and has quite a bit of charm, and is physically completely inappropriate for the kinds of traffic patters that a con has. And the place was NOT built with accessibility as a concern.
This caused major problems, of course. But fewer, and less serious, than at many other cons, because both the con runners and the hotel staff went out of their way to try to deal with the problems, both proactively and reactively. Actual thought went into how to mitigate the problems, actual resources went into trying to solve them.
The results weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and Arisia has since moved to a different hotel. But I was impressed by how much LESS serious the problems were than they might have been.
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branchandroot
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Date: 2012-09-10 12:06 pm (UTC)A few years ago, Arisia in Boston was at a quirky Hyatt which is built something like a ziggaraut. It is gorgeous, and has quite a bit of charm, and is physically completely inappropriate for the kinds of traffic patters that a con has. And the place was NOT built with accessibility as a concern.
This caused major problems, of course. But fewer, and less serious, than at many other cons, because both the con runners and the hotel staff went out of their way to try to deal with the problems, both proactively and reactively. Actual thought went into how to mitigate the problems, actual resources went into trying to solve them.
The results weren't perfect by any stretch of the imagination, and Arisia has since moved to a different hotel. But I was impressed by how much LESS serious the problems were than they might have been.