Chicago Worldcon accessibility woes

[vivdunstan]

Extremely relieved I decided against paying for a virtual access ticket to this year's Worldcon in Chicago which is happening right now. They are using Airmeet, which admittedly isn't Gather Town. But I anticipated problems. The conference have now emailed out a fulsome apology to Worldcon members for the accessibility issues that people are having. It is such a shame, and so extremely unnecessary. The New Zealand Worldcon a couple of years ago aced a purely online conference using Zoom and Discord. But yup, very relieved I'm not battling the tech! By contrast the Tolkien Society are hosting a hybrid Oxonmoot this weekend, in both Oxford in person and online via Zoom / Discord and later YouTube for catch up videos. They have handled this technology wonderfully for a couple of years. I have full confidence I will be able to access and enjoy this year's event too, though mainly on catchup. But yup, glad I dodged the Worldcon.

Comments

[a_cubed]

Thanks for the kind words about CoNZealand. When we pivoted to virtual, one of the things I know we had staff working on was the accessibility issues of the virtual model.

[vivdunstan]

They did a great job. Thanks!

[a_cubed]

I know you're planning on attending Glasgow in person, but would you be willing to have a chat with the Glasgow person who is in charge of their virtual program to explain what you found good and useful about CNZ and what didn't work at Chicon and what the needs of someone like you are? If you'd be OK with this, it could be done via email (DM me an email? Not sure if I've got it) so that you can do it asynchronously or on a live call if that would be preferable for you. He's in the US, though, so synchronous meetings are limited in sensible joint times.