sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
[personal profile] sasha_feather
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?

Date: 2012-09-03 06:45 pm (UTC)
neotoma: Spock explains rocks to McCoy (stupidity)
From: [personal profile] neotoma
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.

...what?! I currently have no mobility issues, but I'd still resent the hell out of a concom who thought wasting my time in such a way (and thus making me miss panels that actually exist) was a hilarious joke. That was incredibly unprofessional on someone's part.

Date: 2012-09-03 07:54 pm (UTC)
owlectomy: A squashed panda sewing a squashed panda (Default)
From: [personal profile] owlectomy
You know, I can conceive of it happening at a small, chill local con where you can expect most of the attendees to be in on the joke. That wouldn't make it a good idea, but I can conceive of it.

At WorldCon? At the biggest event in professional book-related science fiction fandom, the event where the Hugos are given out, an event that costs over $200 to attend? That's astonishingly unprofessional.

(And as someone who's been to just one WorldCon, I can only say, WorldCon gets a lot of old people. A convention with that many old people CANNOT give short shrift to accessibility. Not that only older people need accessibility, or anything, but the number of wheelchair and scooter users does increase as the average age goes up.)

Date: 2012-09-06 03:34 pm (UTC)
azurelunatic: Vivid pink Alaskan wild rose. (Default)
From: [personal profile] azurelunatic
One of my (TAB and Chicago-local) friends was there; she mentioned that the only panels she was actually interested in turned out to be the joke panels. She specifically mentioned the one on Superhero Genetics, moderated by Charles Xavier, in a room that was named similarly to other actual rooms but did not exist; she thought the joke was that there was going to be a surprise or cosplaying moderator, rather than the panel not existing.
Edited Date: 2012-09-06 03:35 pm (UTC)

Date: 2012-09-07 03:56 pm (UTC)
sparkymonster: (Default)
From: [personal profile] sparkymonster
A panel where everyone was in character as various comic scientists etc. would be amaaaaazing

Date: 2012-09-07 05:55 pm (UTC)
julieandrews: (Default)
From: [personal profile] julieandrews
Totally need to do that at Wiscon!

Date: 2012-09-07 05:19 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
This is a holdover from Capricon, many chairs of which ran Worldcon. The "Woebegon" track often has some of the best panels, but the participants are usually a clue as to the imaginative nature of the panels. I works better in the Capricon hotel, and the insiders know not to look for it. Not any relief for someone who has spent time and effort to find the non-existent panel, I know, but not maliciously done by any means.

SAMK

Date: 2012-09-08 09:37 am (UTC)
neotoma: Neotoma albigula, the white-throated woodrat! [default icon] (Default)
From: [personal profile] neotoma
the insiders know not to look for it

Which is a reason not to do it a WorldCon, because just how many people who aren't regulars are there? Especially for people who aren't native English speakers and unfamiliar with all the media to get that the names are for fictional characters, the locations reference English-language puns, etc?

not maliciously done by any means

Seriously, whether the intent was malicious or not doesn't matter here. That people were lost and struggled to find a place that didn't exist does. That they were told that their complaint about the fake track meant they had no sense of humor by the con chair does.

I might go to a WorldCon, but I have serious doubts that I want to go to a ChiCon.

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