sasha_feather (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
sasha_feather) wrote2012-09-03 01:07 pm
sasha_feather) wrote2012-09-03 01:07 pm
Entry tags:
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?
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?
looking further ahead....
(Anonymous) 2012-09-05 03:53 pm (UTC)(link)https://www.loncon3.org/
Looking further out to Spokane Vs. Orlando (which will be voted on next summer),
One of the prime selling point of the Orlando site is accessibility (golf cart shuttles around an enclosed ground), they already have been thinking about fans with disabilities.
(Spokane looks pretty cool too, but I can see how "its all so walkable" raises red flags for people who have concerns about either mobility and wayfinding.
http://www.spokanein2015.org/wordpress/
http://www.orlandoin2015.org/
Re: looking further ahead....
How will Spokane make getting around easier for those who use canes, crutches, walkers and wheelchairs? Are there ramps and elevators that will take disabled attendees to and from the walkways? Are there portions of the hotel that are only accessible by climbing stairs? Do you have more than enough elevators to compensate if one or more should be stalled between floors, should stick at a particular floor or should break down? Will the meeting rooms for panels have "parking space" set aside for wheelchairs and scooters? (Chicago's WorldCon didn't, which is why I ask.) Will there be places for people who must lug around awkward equipment, such as walkers, crutches and canes? And speaking of those who can walk but who have other needs--could Spokane provide skilled interpreters for the deaf? How about those who need and use service animals?
Also, I have to ask--how are you going to deal with practical "jokes"? Other WorldCons have featured fake program tracks, including fake directions on where to go and what room to be in at a given time? This might not seem like a big deal to those who are physically healthy, but to someone who has a limited store of energy, as many disabled people do, this is not only an annoyance but exhausting, debilitating and, in many cases, physically painful.
I ask all of this because "Spokane is very walkable" worries me, as does the fact that you don't mention any benefits for disabled attendees. As a disabled woman, this concerns me. This concerns me very much indeed.
***
I think that I need to send similar questions to San Antonio. What do you think?
Re: looking further ahead....
(I volunteered to help with the bid at WorldCon this weekend, so I'm not one of the people making the decisions. If they win and I'm suckered onto the concom, I'll do what I can to make sure that disability issues aren't ignored. The smallish steampunk con I help run in NC is very aware, though we were limited by the hotel.)
Re: looking further ahead....
Re: looking further ahead....
(Anonymous) 2012-09-05 06:58 pm (UTC)(link)Re: looking further ahead....
(Anonymous) 2012-09-06 04:17 pm (UTC)(link)I'd be interested to see if early questions can lead to better con organization and support for convention attendees with disabilities. Will it help if those questions are posed in the "bid stage" of Worldcon, where the conventions are both very interested in getting support, and it is early enough in the process to make some changes? There is only so much to be done about architecture, and venues have already been chosen by that stage, but it may help going forward for hotel search committees to think differently about the sites they choose in the future.
Selkiechick
(Openid doesn't like LJ today)
Re: looking further ahead....
One of the things I'd love to address with the committee, should I get to interact with them beyond "hey, I got X pre-support and Y friends at Z Con," is the accessibility issue. One hotel is directly attached to the convention center, and the others are a 5-minute slow walk, according to the person I talked to. (Which, I gotta say, is a lot closer than most of the food in Chicago.)
Knowing my luck, I'll get sucked in to actually help if they win the bid. If I do, I'll poke them a lot about accessibility issues.
Re: looking further ahead....
(Anonymous) 2012-09-07 04:22 am (UTC)(link)I would highly suggest that someone on the convention committee (or an on-site volunteer) walk every single route, noting difficulties along the way (including grade; there are some lovely paved paths in Riverfront Park that could be problematic for someone who struggles with hills.) Then make sure that hotels with access issues are noted as such, because it would be awful to be trapped by a single flight of stairs.
—B. Durbin
Re: looking further ahead....