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sasha_featherAs 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?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 06:45 pm (UTC)...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.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:01 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:05 pm (UTC)... What, like they're puppies?
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:08 pm (UTC)Here's the song, which yeah, is a kids' song:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HxUH7Vt3v-A
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:15 pm (UTC)*sigh* I've talked with someone who was at WorldCon and she just seemed so exhausted by the whole thing.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:19 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 07:54 pm (UTC)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.)
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 09:24 pm (UTC)It was a long time before I recognized my own access needs and their validity because the world is designed in a way that needs are termed "special," and it doesn't always feel like my needs are "important enough" for "special" access. I bet there are a lot of folks like this, who would take advantage of access that was offered just par for the course but wouldn't know to bring it up elsewhere. At a recent con I attended a PWD gathering where we started introductions with name, pronouns, and any access needs--about 1/3 of the group stated that they weren't sure what their access needs were because they were so new to being asked and hadn't had time to think about and name their needs. The first time I used ASL interpretation was at a con where many interpreters were available and some friends encouraged me to ask because I was really frustrated trying to hear in a workshop and couldn't focus on the content. I timidly asked, and though I hadn't requested interpreters, the coordinator was kind, helpful, and figured out a way to get me a team for the day and then hired additional interpreters the next day. My access was far better and I came away with a really good feeling about the event.
Of course, it's not always financially feasible to provide interpreters, and it is usually the more expensive, larger cons that can provide the ideal access of interpreters for every workshop. But even comparing WisCon and WorldCon on this, I notice that WorldCon emphasizes that interpreters may be available for some events and that they will not be paid. WisCon's policy seems to be a "we'll do our best!" which if not ideal is a better approach than "hey, uh, anyone want to volunteer?"
I'm considering saving up to go to WisCon one day, and I'm glad to see that y'all are at least putting forth a serious effort on access and framing it as a natural, common need for the whole con population rather than a "special" thing.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 10:52 pm (UTC)I just-- I'm really appalled at the idea of not paying interpreters. I know that a lot of conventions are run by volunteers, etc, but this is different because it is about the charity (ie pity) model of disability rather than the social justice model of disability. It is better to have no interpreters at all, IMO, than to have unpaid ones, because this just reinforces a very old idea of PWD getting the crumbs from the table, and people who serve PWD doing noble self-sacrificing charity work, rather than regular old paid work.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-03 11:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 03:36 am (UTC)The Worldcon site was definitely awkward re: mobility. To get from registration to the Art Show, for example, required going up one level, across a connection bridge to a second building, and then down one level.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 06:45 am (UTC)Handicapped Services: Sally Woerhle
Staff: Bill Thomasson
Two people doesn't seem like much for a con this size. I'd also like to mention that the WorldCon Greenhorn page doesn't even mention any of the following:
* accessibility
* handicaps
* disabilities
* wheelchairs
* walkers
* crutches
* canes
* elevators
* stairs
* ramps
* deafness
* interpreters
* blindness
* Braille
* epilepsy (which can be a real problem in presentations that feature flashing or rhythmic lights)
* service animals
* pain
It doesn't sound as if it occurred to anyone that any first-time attendees might not be in perfect physical shape...even though it should have.
Apparently any questions not answered on the site should be addressed here:
info@lonestarcon3.org
Which I hope that some people will. It looks as if this year's disaster might not be a one-off.
no subject
Date: 2012-09-04 06:49 pm (UTC)The hotel itself had issues; I wonder if that's the best-suited convention space in Chicago... (I don't live there, so I can't say).
Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-04 07:36 pm (UTC)Selkie
(Access Services, Arisia)
But it has to be funny
Date: 2012-09-04 08:18 pm (UTC)Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-04 10:16 pm (UTC)It's really, really hard to integrate the understanding and implementation of access needs across the board among all departments involved in putting on a convention. It requires a major cultural shift, one that often means multiple years of incremental improvements, and inevitably there is pushback from others on the committee who just don't perceive it as a priority. But using that as an excuse to do nothing is no excuse at all; any change, any improvement, even in baby steps, is progress.
Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-04 10:31 pm (UTC)http://www.nea.gov/resources/accessibility/pubs/DesignAccessibility.html
to try and facilitate the cultural shift, and remind people that Access is everyone's job from Hotel Search to Publications to Con Suite, and it works better (and is less effort) if you think about everyone from the start of planning the con, instead of just tacking on an Access person at the end.
Arisia isn't WisCon, but we are trying...
https://sites.google.com/site/sfaccessibility/
I hear you on the cultural shift, and incremental change, and I feel like WorldCon is such a hard case for this, because of the turnover in staff from year to year, with not a lot of overlap.
Re: But it has to be funny
Date: 2012-09-04 10:38 pm (UTC)Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-04 11:31 pm (UTC)As a not-currently-disabled convention member, I think the part of WisCon's Access page that I find the most useful is the section toward the very bottom that explains useful ally behavior. That's the piece that seems to me hardest to integrate: getting non-disabled con-goers to understand, embrace and implement universal access. Speaking for myself, for a very long time, I had a horror of saying/doing ANYTHING lest it be the wrong thing, so having clear, specific and achievable suggested behaviors to strive for is tremendously helpful.
Con venues are hard to find, particularly for an event the size of a typical WorldCon. When a committee has to choose between a site that offers lots of programming space and lousy access vs. one that offers great access but limited programming space, well, it's easy to understand why they'd opt for the place with lots of room for programming. But that is EXACTLY the situation in which it becomes critical to go to extra lengths to communicate to all members how to be useful allies, how to facilitate and support access needs, and especially to work with all departments to be sure that access is fully integrated into the entire con. So thank you for speaking up at SMOFcon on the subject - and I hope to hear how the message is received.
Wups, sorry, forgot to identify myself. It's the email writer quoted in the first post again.
Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-04 11:37 pm (UTC)Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-05 12:39 am (UTC)Re: Venues for change
Date: 2012-09-05 12:51 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2012-09-05 05:36 am (UTC)As an access services person, I try to think about how different people use and interact with the convention space, and what things would make that interaction easier, or simpler. But, even with guiding documents, like the Geek Feminism Wiki, and guidance from Universal Design experts (http://www.nea.gov/resources/accessibility/pubs/DesignAccessibility.html), I can't think of everything, and so requests really do help.
(and I am worried I am talking too much on here.... sorry!)