Thoughts on World Fantasy Con

[jimhines]

I’ve been hearing a fair amount of frustration with this year’s World Fantasy Convention over various issues.

WFC was the first “world-level” convention I attended, more than a decade ago now. It was intimidating and overwhelming, but also fun and rewarding. Sadly, I won’t be at WFC in Brighton this month. Which could raise the question, “Why am I

Comments

[suricattus]

Yep, I was asked to be the moderator on the "Broads with Swords" panel. I accepted because the best way to haul that sucker around to a more useful discussion is to be the one directing the discussion

[mme_hardy]

It's worth mentioning that the Brighton Metropole has its own accessibility handout --a very nice one, too, mentioning things like a hoist available in the pool)-- and the handout explicitly states that all meeting areas are accessible. I infer that the concom didn't think of asking about accessibility in advance, or they'd have had a copy.

*That* panel.

[ext_2202850]

I'm on this, after coming to a similar conclusion. I'd be interested in some discussion of potential topics beforehand if that sounds like a good idea?

[lillian13]

You do know this is John Hartwell's private show, right? He owns the rights, and makes the majority of the decisions. Like only having book dealers in the dealer's room. ;-)

It's always been more of a professional conference than a "convention"--Business Gets Done at these. I've run two of the art shows (Monterey and Corpus Christi), and it really is about making connections.

I can see their point about charging for the kaffeklatches. A LOT of people sign up for lots of them and then never show up, depriving folks who really wanted to chat with a certain author. (Now, if the money had gone to charity, I think that would have been a nice compromise.)

[akiko]

A LOT of people sign up for lots of them and then never show up, depriving folks who really wanted to chat with a certain author.

That can be solved by having a waiting list and giving the sign-up sheet to the door dragon. At a certain point (five minutes past the start?), if there are no-shows, the waiting list gets to go in.

[mme_hardy]

As many people have pointed out, that *is* how the problem is handled at many other cons. The concom has responded that they don't have the manpower to do this.

[akiko]

So, who's going to make sure that only the people who sign up for the 'klatsch are the ones in attendance? Is that on the author's shoulders, then?

[riverrocks]

Wheel chair access is about more than can someone get me into the room if I'm using a chair. It really needs to be about whether the person using the chair can get into the room without having to use undue amounts of time and effort asking and waiting for help to access "alternative" (read "special") routes that require staff specific keys or access codes. We had this problem with more than one of the venues at a theater festival I was part of for several years. When a person's access is dependent on an overworked staff person stepping out of their regular routine to get you somewhere patrons don't usually go, it's not actually access.

[jimhines]

True. It's something that needs to be actively planned ahead of time as opposed to a reactive scrambling-when-people-actually-show-up or waiting to do things in response to problems.

[mariness]

While I'm glad that it seems like events will be accessible after all, I do want to note that this clarification has been made about one month before the start of the con -- well after I'd cancelled my plans to go because of accessibility concerns, and too late for me to make last minute plans. I wish there'd been some way to clear up these concerns earlier this year.

[jimhines]

Agreed. They posted on their website that certain venues weren't accessible. The moment someone saw that text, it should have been a red flag that there's a problem we need to solve.

And while I haven't seen other specific complaints, this one would make me very nervous about other potential accessibility problems.

[mme_hardy]

A friend of mine who is a solicitor in the U.K. went up in flames of wrath when she saw the site, and started reeling off all the laws the organization was violating. Among other things, the U.K. has a reasonably robust law about accessibility to public accommodations, the Equality Act 2010, and a hotel like the Metropole would be insane not to abide by it.

My Googling says that websites are probably covered, too...

[faecat]

Only vaguely related, I guess -- when I was in London this summer, the Tube stations I was in seemed amazingly non-wheelchair friendly to me, and I was hearing horror stories about wheelchair users at the Paralympic Games having to bodily drag themselves out of their chairs and up or down the stairs because of the lack or inaccessibility of elevators. I was just floored.

[3rdragon]

For what it's worth, on the other end of the spectrum, when I was on concouncil for a shoestring-budget college con, we *always* charged an additional fee for the Breakfast with the Guests session, partly because it was actual breakfast and we needed to pay for it somehow (and, let's be honest, many college students don't want to pay for their own breakfast, much less someone else's), and also because we wanted the smaller, conversational feel, rather than the mob of 50 or 100 people that we might get with a subset of those guests later in the day.

But I recognize that the finances of the organizations involved are on a completely different scale, and the nature of the event may be slightly different, too.

[julieandrews]

I could see having a donation jar near the coffee and cookies. Heck, I could even see not having cookies! It's just an opportunity to sit down with a small group of people and one author/guest in an informal setting. And people like drinking something when they're having a chat.

People aren't signing up to attend because of the free food!

[mme_hardy]

This has been discussed in other forums, and it seems that the coffee and biscuit fee is imposed by the hotel; in the U.K. they don't have con suites, because the hotel doesn't allow, or charges corkage for, food you bring yourself.

[julieandrews]

I'm sure other cons pay the hotel for catering for the kaffeeklatsches. Usually it's in the contract that the con has to buy catering for certain things. Green room, or a bar at an awards ceremony, a banquet, dead-dog party, whatever. But, like how participants don't have to pay for the food in the green room, attendees of a kaffeeklatsch shouldn't have to pay for coffee.