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AI Report in progress
Sep. 13th, 2014 08:22 pmGot back from the AI 2014 Postmortem about an hour ago. There was... a good amount to say, and some stuff to do, and I've got my whole "Making of an Accessibility Department" entry mentally outlined already, so. Some bullet points:
* According to the very informal Staff Survey, in which AI staffers attending the meeting were asked if departments had "Improved", "Stayed the same", or "Gotten worse" since last year, the Accessibility Department was very much in the 'improved' category. I voted for "Improved" but also "Gotten worse", since I do know that I let some things slip through the cracks for 2014, and then there was the whole wrist band debacle, but mostly it went pretty well, IMO.
* Speaking of the wrist band thing: I confirmed that it was our previous Hotel Department head who had okay'd the use of staff corridor access wrist bands for attendees with disabilities. Our current Hotel head said that it was probably the lack of warning/prep time that prevented that being an option this year, and told me that if I asked far enough ahead of time, she could probably make it happen for the 2015 convention. I asked her if asking now was enough time, to which she laughed and said yes, then asked me to send an e-mail reminder, since she was pretty sure she'd forget otherwise. I don't know if I'll get to the e-mail reminder tonight, but I'm hoping that posting the "Making Of" report to![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png)
access_fandom in the near future will remind me to do so, so I don't forget and mess it up for 2015. (My major failing this year was that I assumed that, since we got permission to do the wrist-band thing in 2013, that permission would carry over to this year. Never doing that again if I can possibly help it.)
* The general survey for attendees has a list of departments and events, with a rating system for how important something is and how well AI did on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest), as well as a section for comments. The Accessibility department itself wasn't on the list of things to rate, but both the Consweet and the Shuttle Bus (a school bus which makes regular shuttle trips between selected hotels in the area) received high marks. They both got around a 4 on average, and since the highest mark anything got was 4.65, I'd say that's pretty darn good.
* The Consweet in particular got a lot of positive comments on the inclusion of labels for the eight most common food allergies, as well as "Gluten-free" and "Vegan" for any of our snack foods that applied.
Our Info Desk head (who compiled the surveys) is going to be sending out the compiled comments shortly. I plan to post this with any further info from the comments to access_fandom as soon as I get it and can look through the information.
Edit: Comments:
- We had one person say they appreciated the designated changing room in Cosplay Central, but another person reported that it wasn't open before the convention proper; will need to see what I can do about the latter.
- Someone - presumably the same person who complained that citrus wasn't labeled in the Consweet - commented that they couldn't enter the Consweet because of oranges(?). I know oranges are highly aromatic, but I wasn't aware that any food allergen aside from peanuts was air transmittable? Will have to look this up.
- Forgot this completely: This year we made bag check for the Dealer's Room optional, whereas in previous years it had been mandatory. While I had been entirely prepared to have exemption stickers made for people with necessary medical equipment/bags, the fact that I don't have to is quite nice.
- Sounds like the MC (same as the one for Opening Ceremonies) did more of the same while MC-ing the Masquerade, though only one of the four people commenting specifically on him brought this up.
Will sort through more later.
* According to the very informal Staff Survey, in which AI staffers attending the meeting were asked if departments had "Improved", "Stayed the same", or "Gotten worse" since last year, the Accessibility Department was very much in the 'improved' category. I voted for "Improved" but also "Gotten worse", since I do know that I let some things slip through the cracks for 2014, and then there was the whole wrist band debacle, but mostly it went pretty well, IMO.
* Speaking of the wrist band thing: I confirmed that it was our previous Hotel Department head who had okay'd the use of staff corridor access wrist bands for attendees with disabilities. Our current Hotel head said that it was probably the lack of warning/prep time that prevented that being an option this year, and told me that if I asked far enough ahead of time, she could probably make it happen for the 2015 convention. I asked her if asking now was enough time, to which she laughed and said yes, then asked me to send an e-mail reminder, since she was pretty sure she'd forget otherwise. I don't know if I'll get to the e-mail reminder tonight, but I'm hoping that posting the "Making Of" report to
access_fandom in the near future will remind me to do so, so I don't forget and mess it up for 2015. (My major failing this year was that I assumed that, since we got permission to do the wrist-band thing in 2013, that permission would carry over to this year. Never doing that again if I can possibly help it.)* The general survey for attendees has a list of departments and events, with a rating system for how important something is and how well AI did on a scale of 1 to 5 (1 being the lowest, 5 being the highest), as well as a section for comments. The Accessibility department itself wasn't on the list of things to rate, but both the Consweet and the Shuttle Bus (a school bus which makes regular shuttle trips between selected hotels in the area) received high marks. They both got around a 4 on average, and since the highest mark anything got was 4.65, I'd say that's pretty darn good.
* The Consweet in particular got a lot of positive comments on the inclusion of labels for the eight most common food allergies, as well as "Gluten-free" and "Vegan" for any of our snack foods that applied.
Our Info Desk head (who compiled the surveys) is going to be sending out the compiled comments shortly. I plan to post this with any further info from the comments to access_fandom as soon as I get it and can look through the information.
Edit: Comments:
- We had one person say they appreciated the designated changing room in Cosplay Central, but another person reported that it wasn't open before the convention proper; will need to see what I can do about the latter.
- Someone - presumably the same person who complained that citrus wasn't labeled in the Consweet - commented that they couldn't enter the Consweet because of oranges(?). I know oranges are highly aromatic, but I wasn't aware that any food allergen aside from peanuts was air transmittable? Will have to look this up.
- Forgot this completely: This year we made bag check for the Dealer's Room optional, whereas in previous years it had been mandatory. While I had been entirely prepared to have exemption stickers made for people with necessary medical equipment/bags, the fact that I don't have to is quite nice.
- Sounds like the MC (same as the one for Opening Ceremonies) did more of the same while MC-ing the Masquerade, though only one of the four people commenting specifically on him brought this up.
Will sort through more later.
