I had to think very carefully on this since the end of the convention but it's not really a negative thing, that's something I would not want to do for such hard work from the convention staff that really did a great job this year. I can not stress enough on how things went and I understand that a new venue would bring some new problems, especially for a first time outing to it with a convention that had to deal with over 1,000 attendee's.
So saying the above, I have to stress again this isn't an entry to bring the mood down or to bring down the hard work that the staff had done over the week when the convention is running.
Hotel:
1. I found some areas a bit too dark, it's a personal opinion with my poor eye vision so probably not much could be done about it regardless but felt worth mentioning.
2. Maybe temporary tape could be put down on edge of stairs with a bright colour to show where a step is, had a few instances of nearly either falling down or tripping up but again this is a small thing and not a bad thing for the convention overall.
3. The cheap food offered opposite The Boulevard I found to be how to put it. Unable to keep said food hot at the right temperature. The meat always felt lukewarm to cold which wasn't pleasant and only went once, rest was to get a can or crisps. Same could be said when breakfast was on as cold bacon wasn't that great but otherwise in the other room it was hot. (I believe it's using a room not normally used to catering and the hot plates could not keep their temps anyways. Something to work on at least for next year.)
Okay, now that's done.. Hmm, moving on, will stress it's something I found issues with but it's something that I believe to not be something to make major changes at all as I can't put blame onto this on any one particular person.
I am glad that there was ramps and all for the disabled in this convention and that I understand that there is a lot of hard work by staff to ensure that everyone has fun, regardless of their physical abilities or not. I did find a few issues of having problems during the convention where sight issues did come into it.
Yes, I understand at the time I did not speak up, felt that the staff had way too much to do at the time running the convention than to deal with what I felt, issues that weren't important enough at that given time. So the blame would go towards myself for my lack of judgement on this so do not concern yourselves on these issues I'm about to list.
1. Stairs needed to be marked for easy visability.
2. For myself it's a bit hard to tell from orange and yellow so may have approached orange than staff/security if I needed help in finding something during the convention when I was not with someone at the time.
3. The Hilton was helpful in supplying information for disabled people but I do find it a bit off to not be able to supply a larger font of their information if not requested. (This is a hotel issue, not a convention issue.)
4. I am unsure if it's worthwhile or not to see if more can be done for staff/volunteers to understand that there may be those at the convention who may require help when it's not visibly seen. Sometimes those may not be able to see a staffer to approach.
But I cannot put blame and this isn't blaming or complaining about this particular issue, I did have fun regardless of some small issues and I do consider them small as I face these issues every single day and sometimes I can be stubborn to not request help, even when I really should.
One suggestion though is to have the Dealers Den if possible to have the names of the dealers in a more visible location as in above than on the sides of the tables which are always covered up by the con attendees. That made things a lot harder to find people, even with help from a convention dealers den map in the convention book and/or mini-guide.
Apart from a non-games room which I understand is being looked into for next year. I cannot fault the convention at all, even with the above as of course nothing can run smoothly or to please everyone but I am honoured that the staff do all that they can to try and accomplish this and would never want to undermine their hard efforts.
So take this as you will, hopefully in a good way. I can see myself returning next year regardless and should've come a lot sooner. I thought I would put things down but if need be can discuss this more in private on the issues above.
