Pronoun Trouble

The problem of there never being enough elevators at conventions for all the attendees who want to use them has existed since long before Covid, and will likely continue to exist until someone invents and manages to mass-market some sort of levitation or anti-gravity field. In the mean time, finding a way to encourage able-bodied attendees to use the stairs to make sure that disabled attendees have space on the elevator is an ongoing puzzle.

Taking a page or two from my time on AI's Environmental Enhancement Team, I decided that a good way to go about this would be to make something about using the stairs more fun. Of course, this approach comes with conditions of its own:

1) It cannot make using the stairs more dangerous
2) It should not make people who can't or shouldn't use the stairs feel left out

This immediately eliminated several options I was thinking of, but I may have finally landed on something workable:

For any con that can get their venue's permission, I think it would be fun to post rotating visual stuff on the landings between floors. (Like... when you take the stairs in most businesses, you go up half a flight, take a short walk, then go up another half a flight to get to the next floor? The short walk area.) Fun, short quotes in super large print, art (possibly by artist GOHs, possibly submitted by attendees?), logos or posters from various shows, that sort of thing. Change them out once or twice a day; say, one set for the morning, one set for the afternoon, maybe one set for the evening/night.

To make sure everyone gets access to the fun stuff being posted there, the con can share digital copies (with image descriptions, natch) of the images on their website after the event is over. Something more immediate might be sharing the images on the con's official social media accounts as they're taken down; so the morning signs would be shared online when the afternoon signs are put up, the afternoon signs are shared when the evening/night signs go up, etc. That would give some incentive for people who can take the stairs to do so (they get to see the new signs "early"), while also making sure that anyone who can't or shouldn't isn't left out of the loop for too long. Keeping the signage relatively simple, and/or making it available online later, can also help make sure that people don't spend too long on the stairs and end up blocking the way.

IDK, there's probably more kinks to work out of the idea, but I think it has promise!

Got home from an AnimeIowa meeting today to see this post on access_fandom.

I... want the job. I've only done about 60% of what they list as needing done, but the post says they have good notes and documentation for the rest, and last I knew WisCon was pretty much the gold standard of accessibility for SFF cons. (I am no longer sure how it compares to furry cons, as of, like, yesterday.) It would be an incredible learning opportunity.

It would also be potentially expensive, not to mention more than a bit stressful, and as a bonus my boss is on vacation for the next week so I can't talk to her about it.

I passed the link on to the two people who asked me about running Accessibility stuff for conventions, because above all else, I want WisCon to be able to keep its standard of accessibility for its attendees.

In the mean time, I need to shove it out of my brain, so I can sleep. I've got work tomorrow!

I don't know if I've mentioned it here yet, but in addition to the staff person from the "rival" convention who reached out to me for tips on running Accessibility, one of our sister conventions also wanted to learn! I've forwarded the email I sent to the "rival" con person, and hopefully we'll get to have a meetup sometime in the near future to discuss more in person. It sounds like they have actual formal training, so I look forward to learning some stuff from them, as well!

I called the local Tourist Info board, and they were able to direct me to a company that rents out wheelchairs, and it's (more-or-less) in my budget to rent some for the weekend! They don't make arrangements more than a few weeks in advance, though, so I need to call them again in early July, but now I know 1) Who to call, and 2) That they do rent out wheelchairs, and that's at least half of this particular battle!

Time to go add this to my Hit By A Bus notes.

I got an email last night from someone who wants to start an accessibility department sort of thing for their own local anime con and wanted my advice!

I just spent over an hour getting down everything I could think of in a reply email, including a few of my own shortcomings and foibles, because it's good to know that nobody's perfect, and also getting accessibility better everywhere is the goal. It was a lot of words and a lot of thinking, but it was totally worth it, and I really hope that person can do everything they want with making "their" con accessible ♥

And now I need a drink of water; that was a lot of work!

Dear Self,

Listen. If you finish your Accessibility Department stuff on time, then you can think about joining Pod Together this year. Until then, you had better forget about it.

Sincerely,
You

Literally had a dream last night where I explained, in-dream, that I cannot pay attention to written words if there are audible words happening at the same time. I am amazed at myself. Also, good on dream!me for knowing when and how to explain my ADHD-related accessibility needs and standing up for myself!

Art time, woo!



(Click the thumbnail for a larger image.)

I put capri0mni's Disability Pride flag together with the Accessible Icon's redesigned Accessibility symbol for the Accessibility Passes for the local anime con I staff. Disabled folks will be able to use a badge with this symbol to skip lines controlled by the convention and get early access to panel rooms—with one person of their choice accompanying them. I plan to leave a cache at the Registration desk, another cache at the Info Desk/Accessibility Station, and to carry a few with me when I have the chance to wander around the con on my own and might run into people who need one and don't know we have them.

I've had Accessibility Passes available at the con for the past few years, but what with Executive Dysfunction, I've only had them printed out on regular paper rather than the cardstock I kept insisting I wanted them to be on. This year, after one of our convention execs reminded the staff that we have a button maker available to use, I thought it would be the perfect solution: Something novel that could keep my attention long enough to get it done, or at least pass some of the work on to someone else. (Thank you, exec in question ♥) The buttons are going to be 2.25" in diameter, and the image will be framed by the words "Accessibility Pass". I'm planning to e-mail the person who puts together our powerpoints to get the image into the presentation for the final meeting (the last one before the con) so I can let as much of the rest of the staff know what it's about as possible.

Anyway! Thanks very much to capri0mni for designing the flag and making it freely available to the public! I'll make sure to have the breakdown of the flag available for anyone who seems interested in it :)b