Grr

[moon_custafer]

I am never going to Fanexpo again. I am probably never going to any corporate-run convention again.

The short version is (a) their event planning assumes everyone is young, able-bodied, and not traveling with small children, and (b) that such people have no need for chairs or benches over the course of a long day.

My thanks to the various fans who gave us water and generally tried to help. Security, OTOH, tended to be standing over green_trilobite whenever I cam back from a reconnaissance or beverage-finding mission, and would then ask me why I wasn't helping him.

We gave up after a few hours of green_trilobite semi-collapsing, ate the ticket costs and came home without seeing Stan Lee. Oh, and getting out of the building was fun, too - I finally steered green_trilobite through what turned out to be a fire door, and got yelled at by another security guard; but at least he let us leave.

Comments

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

:-( How awful. Fan expo is notorious, even amongst other corporate run cons for rotten setups but this is beyond the pale. They're probably violating municipal bylaws by not providing proper access for mobility impaired people.

[moon-custafer.livejournal.com]

It was the lack of benches that really annoys me in retrospect - there were lots of people sitting in stairwells or on the floors because there was nowhere else to sit, and greentrilobite's main problem was that it's hard for him to get up from sitting on the floor (lots of non-security people always offered to help him, but he doesn't like having his arms pulled on either). I'm not sure to what extent this part was Rogers' fault - surely a convention centre should have public benches.

We'd brought a folding lawn chair, but it broke in the ticket lineup.

[crankydon.blogspot.com (from livejournal.com)]

I see a lot of those folding camp chairs that are also canes in fan line-ups.

It occurs to me that Fan run conventions were the first big conventions to be fully handicapped accessible. The guys running the Expo are a big step backwards and clearly are just generic businessmen with no clues as to their customer base.

[c-crockett.livejournal.com]

"I am probably never going to any corporate-run convention again."

Hear, hear! One of the things I love about fan run conventions is that most of them are run by people who actually give a shit about access. The implementation varies, not everyone 'gets it', but there's a general tendency to try for some level of accessibility.

I don't like having my arms pulled on either. In theory, the person who is helping is supposed to let the person trying to rise hang on to their forearm[s]. Much less likely to get something dislocated or just yanked painfully, that way.

"I see a lot of those folding camp chairs that are also canes in fan line-ups." Shooting sticks.

Fanexpo is creepy as hell. They target successful fan-run media cons and schedule their gate shows right before hand to suck up all the disposable cash. The local one recruited some fans to run a masquerade this year and I'm seeing a lot of FB statuses about how utterly messed up the fanexpo side is.