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: 2012-09-07 04:36 am (UTC)
emceeaich: A close-up of a pair of cats-eye glasses (Default)
From: [personal profile] emceeaich
One suggestion: take the room parties out of the guest rooms and penthouse parlors, and put them on the ground and mezzanine levels of the convention center and hotels. Abled-bodied members can walk a flight or two of stairs and save the elevators for those who need them to go up or down a level.

London in 2014's planning to have the parties at the convention center, but that does mean changes for how you use space in the evening, and negotiations over catering. But we're Fandom and we know how to negotiate hotel contracts.

Date: 2012-09-07 05:27 pm (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
Just something - I'm not attending London because I find the city in general to be painfully inaccessible & expensive for wheelchair users. The Tube is hardly accessible at all unless you're travelling between specific stations. London buses have the appearance of accessibility, but a lot of the attitudes involved between non-disabled bus users & drivers who don't want to take the time to get down their ramps make it awkward. Accessible taxis tend to cost twice as much as other taxis. If you just go in the street to get where you're going - if you even can all the way - people don't look where they're going, they walk into you, etc. I just don't ever visit London if I can possibly avoid it. Birmingham is little better for the same purposes, though I live in Manchester and have an easier time in my chair at home. But I hate, hate, HATE London from an accessibility POV. The place gives me panic attacks.

Someday there'll be a WorldCon somewhere I can afford to go AND physically manage... Someday. For the meantime, it's Discworld Con, Starfury & possibly EuroCon (Dublin) for me. Sigh. Being excluded by inaccessibility is a stressful thing. Particularly when you're not 30 yet & people assume you have to be older to be using a wheelchair.

- Trialia, who can't seem to log in.

Date: 2012-09-07 05:42 pm (UTC)
readsalot: (ahiru as girl looks curious [Princess Tu)
From: [personal profile] readsalot
Putting room parties in function space usually means spending $$$$$ on them, because hotels believe that they should provide all food and beverage that's consumed in function space. Sometimes you can negotiate them out of it--it depends on the hotel, the location, and how much they want your business.

And here in Massachusetts it's *illegal* for a hotel to let alcohol be served in function space unless the hotel provides the alcohol and a bartender. There are also legal restrictions on where hotels can buy their alcoholic beverages. None of this helps in keeping prices down.

London

Date: 2012-09-18 12:55 am (UTC)
From: (Anonymous)
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

Re: London

Date: 2012-09-22 03:26 pm (UTC)
feuervogel: photo of the statue of Victory and her chariot on the Brandenburg Gate (Default)
From: [personal profile] feuervogel
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.

Profile

sasha_feather: Retro-style poster of skier on pluto.   (Default)
sasha_feather

May 2025

S M T W T F S
    123
45678910
11121314151617
18192021 222324
25262728293031

Most Popular Tags

Page Summary

Style Credit

Expand Cut Tags

No cut tags
Page generated May. 26th, 2025 05:16 am
Powered by Dreamwidth Studios