World Fantasy Con

[sasha_feather]

Cheryl Morgan: Welcome to WFC

From the latest Progress Report from World Fantasy:

[...]

Because the Hilton Brighton Metropole is an old building, please note that access to some areas may be limited or unavailable for those with mobility issues. This includes the Registration area in the Sussex Lounge, which is inaccessible by wheelchair.

Comments

[silvercat17]

The *Registration* area is inaccessible?! Good planning jerks!

[jesse_the_k]

Terrible job of messaging. They do recognize it's an issue, as follows:

From http://www.wfc2013.org/news-pr23.html
If anyone with mobility issues needs to contact the Registration & Information Desk, then please get in touch with a Redcoat or Security member in the hotel lobby, who will be happy to arrange for someone to speak with you. Please accept our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause.

But this info doesn't belong in accessibility — it's about registration. Making access info only available in the access silo limits the spread of information.

Plus the "if anyone with issues needs to contact..." language conveys that WFC members by default won't have mobility issues.

[mariness]

For what it's worth one of the convention committee members has told me on Twitter that Registration just requires someone to direct you (his words) and that basically this is all just very bad pr and he's very upset that people are saying bad things about the convention before it even happened.

Which, ok, but either portions of the convention ARE inaccessible, in which case I made the correct decision not to go, or the entire convention IS accessible, in which case the convention should have responded to my emails 11 months ago so that I could go.

And you know, on its own, enjoying a quaint old hotel once in awhile is awesome. But this is the third year in a row that WFC has gleefully gone to a location that as not fully accessible. I realize it's run by a slightly different group each year and NEXT year WFC is at a fully accessible location. (Yay!).

[jesse_the_k]

On the one hand, it's good that the comcon contacted you.

On the other hand why would they decide to create the need to do so?

[mariness]

Eh, as said, I can see the fun of heading to a quaint hotel. That's not my issue. My issue is a, the three years in a row thing (if the past two hotels had been accessible I'd be fine), b, the fact that when I tried to contact the committee last year they never responded, and c, the mixed messages I'm getting from the committee: in September it's inaccessible, then it isn't, Sunday it's inaccessible, today, the day registration opens, a con committee person tells me "one of the many things we did yesterday was walk through accessibility to check it worked. It does. Best, M."

I mean, that may very well be true. It might work! But they have also said that it doesn't work, or haven't responded to questions about whether or not it works. That's...not fine. Also, as said, the three years in a row thing.

In contrast, by the way, the committee for the London Worldcon is doing a runthrough now with wheelchair users. They've also responded to my emails. They are anticipating problems because London has a lot of old buildings, but they're communicating, which is my main thing.

[mariness]

A comment on my Livejournal notes that there is one lift that gets you access to the programming floors. That lift is broken. Effectively, programming can be reached only by stairs.

GIP

[jesse_the_k]

I ... am too angry to do anything except choose this icon.

What productive thing could we do?

Non UK fans like yourself would need to make a significant investment on a very unlucky bet to even get the standing (so to speak) to participate.

Are there UK fans here with ideas of how to push for access? There are such things as portable lifts and ramps.

There's hints of Sir Terry Pratchett showing up — I'm guessing the organizers would pay attention to his mobility needs, if any.

Re: GIP

[mariness]

My understanding is that Sir Terry Pratchett is scheduled to be there tomorrow, but I don't know for how long or if he's staying at the hotel.

Dealing with World Fantasy is a bit tricky; like Worldcon, it is run by a somewhat different group each year although there's an overall World Fantasy Board. Unlike Worldcon, however, it has a closed membership that pretty much always sells out mostly because it's sorta become "the" professional conference for fantasy writers and hopeful fantasy writers, so it doesn't quite have the same needs, or for that matter, the same issues.

I've been told that next year's WFC is going to be much better. The hotel is the Hyatt Regency, which states it's ADA compliant:

http://crystalcity.hyatt.com/en/hotel/home.html

This is that Hyatt's accessibility statement:

http://crystalcity.hyatt.com/en/hotel/our-hotel/accessibilty.html

Given that this is a Hyatt I anticipate elevator issues because that seems to go along with Hyatt hotels, and I think riding the hotel shuttle is going to be entertaining, but it should otherwise be ok.

So that's next year. Now, for future years. And that I need to spend some time thinking about.

Re: GIP

[sasha_feather]

We could certainly do a social-media-shame campaign. Any ideas for a hashtag?