Fanfest's horrid treatment of disabled fans

FFXIV Fanfest: a DISASTER for Disabled fans [Interview]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF9Nu78_l2U

Main points:

- An ADA fan in the quiet room was rudely told by an employee to piss off when the ADA fan asked them to be quiet in the quiet room
- ADA fans were rudely told to get out of the ADA-reserved seats and one employee made an implicit physical threat to an ADA fan.
- Fans' seats were rudely taken away for the concert, including people who have disabilities.
- Square Enix employees were among those who rudely treated ADA fans.
- Their mistreatment has caused at least one emergency trip visit.
- Many presumably non-disabled fans were tearing off signs indicating that seats were ADA-reserved, and then sitting in them.
- Many fans were exploiting ADA markers to get better seats or cut in line.

How can anyone say with a straight face that FF14 has the best, most wholesome community online again?

That is very unfortunate. I definitely observed that the event management and communication was very poor, especially compared to huge events like comic-con or even medium-sized events like PAX.

Fans abusing ADA markers is shameful. I didn't see ADA seat abuse personally, and I didn't see people taking seats that people had left bags on during the sessions, but the concert was soooo crowded I could imagine things getting ugly. The crowd situation in several areas looked unsafe/potential domino situation so I avoided it. Not enough line staff by a long shot.

Good point about remembering to look out for our ADA warriors of light (especially whenever anything bad is going on) and doing the right thing!!

They really should have informed people about the event line ADA accommodation.

Overall I didn't see fans doing most of the bad things I'd seen at other conventions and festivals like huge line cutting or shoving people physically.

Hope they can fix it for London and Tokyo - the event content itself was great but they need to fix the crowd and line management. ADA concert sight lines should be fixed - at previous fanfests people didn't really stand up in a crowd in front of the seated section but this time forget it. Removing seating at the front to create a standing area might have been a bad idea. It was just so crowded, maybe not quite as bad or dangerous as a music festival but getting there and no crowd staff.

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Originally Posted by Koros

How can anyone say with a straight face that FF14 has the best, most wholesome community online again?

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Technically in-person is not online, but poor event management can bring out the worst in people regardless. It doesn't excuse the (hopefully very few) bad apples, but nearly everyone I met was friendly and awesome (some people just kept to themselves which was fine too.)

The very poor event management in general seems to have been even worse for ADA attendees. However it is 100% fixable, so hopefully they'll do so for the next two fanfests.

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Koros

FFXIV Fanfest: a DISASTER for Disabled fans [Interview]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hF9Nu78_l2U

Main points:

- An ADA fan in the quiet room was rudely told by an employee to piss off when the ADA fan asked them to be quiet in the quiet room
- ADA fans were rudely told to get out of the ADA-reserved seats and one employee made an implicit physical threat to an ADA fan.
- Fans' seats were rudely taken away for the concert, including people who have disabilities.
- Square Enix employees were among those who rudely treated ADA fans.
- Their mistreatment has caused at least one emergency trip visit.
- Many presumably non-disabled fans were tearing off signs indicating that seats were ADA-reserved, and then sitting in them.
- Many fans were exploiting ADA markers to get better seats or cut in line.

How can anyone say with a straight face that FF14 has the best, most wholesome community online again?

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I hate this so much, especially because quiet rooms are easy for abuse. This needs to be investigated externally, not just internally. They also need to find a better way to vet people with disabilities. Having to have a disability pass is too extreme, because not all passes qualify for all disabilities. Unfortunately people misuse this trust, and it’s just awful.

Perhaps next event Square Enix can mark the disabled seating digitally for their team, so that all staff can verify that who is in the seat is supposed to be there in the first place. I know Disney doesn’t require disability passes, and simply requires a virtual video interview. The person has to communicate, and explain the disability ahead of time to reserve the disability services. It’s a way to make sure people are serious about their issue, but also so that it can be arranged privately, and be verified with a little scrutiny. Not enough to just outright refuse everyone. Enough to require effort to reserve the needed services.

Next fan fest some form of effort should be required, disability seating should be online interview reserve only, maybe also have a booth at the convention that’s private too. Multiple staff should be present in the quiet room. Someone should routinely be required to quietly walk into the room every so often to ensure good behavior, and also incase anyone has complaints they’d like to talk about to an outside party. Disability quiet rooms need to be treated in a way similar to sex offender prevention. Two people supervising at all times, and cannot be alone with the guests.

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Originally Posted by Avenger

That is very unfortunate. I definitely observed that the event management and communication was very poor, especially compared to huge events like comic-con or even medium-sized events like PAX.

Fans abusing ADA markers is shameful. I didn't see ADA seat abuse personally, and I didn't see people taking seats that people had left bags on during the sessions, but the concert was soooo crowded I could imagine things getting ugly. The crowd situation in several areas looked unsafe/potential domino situation so I avoided it. Not enough line staff by a long shot.

Good point about remembering to look out for our ADA warriors of light (especially whenever anything bad is going on) and doing the right thing!!

They really should have informed people about the event line ADA accommodation.

Overall I didn't see fans doing most of the bad things I'd seen at other conventions and festivals like huge line cutting or shoving people physically.

Hope they can fix it for London and Tokyo - the event content itself was great but they need to fix the crowd and line management. ADA concert sight lines should be fixed - at previous fanfests people didn't really stand up in a crowd in front of the seated section but this time forget it. Removing seating at the front to create a standing area might have been a bad idea. It was just so crowded, maybe not quite as bad or dangerous as a music festival but getting there and no crowd staff.

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That one fan that kicked the mr happy sign over was funny.

Very rude to damage another persons property, but still funny.

Online presence of a community is different to in person especially in a crowded convention it doesn’t matter on the fandom this will happen regardless so as per usual Koros you make one really good thread the other day and then go back to your generic vitriol. I’m not saying what happened was good or anything. They clearly should have done a better job with security, planning, staff allocation to the event, food/water situation etc etc. I’m going to the london one in October and I think our capacity is way smaller so I’m hoping they take the lessons learned here and carry that forward. Also it being the first fanfest in a long time I think it naturally got everyone a bit more crazy then usual.

In my honest opinion Humanity in general is a species of selfishness and destruction. If they believe they can do what they want without negative consequences of their actions, they will do it 9 out of 10 times without remorse. The community in FF14 online has been conditioned to be nice. If you step out of line you get beaten down with all kinds of reports. People have dubbed this as "toxic positivity". Or in more simple terms "beatings will continue till you behave". Look at WoW the biggest reason why there is a difference between FF14 and WoW's community is there is almost 0 consquences for your actions in wow. So people feel embolden to act in self interest and believe it or not there are people who enjoy the suffering of others out there. You could ninja roll items in wow, you can cuss people out, you can kick them for any reason and never receive any consequence to your action. The only way for people in these fan fests to behave is to show that their will be consquences for their actions. Video record them, write notes of what they did and get their names. Then report them either to management or the police.

Please put a Zepla warning with your youtube link.

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Originally Posted by CKNovel

Please put a Zepla warning with your youtube link.

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What's a Zepla warning?

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Originally Posted by Zachia

If you step out of line you get beaten down with all kinds of reports. People have dubbed this as "toxic positivity"

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Somewhere from mid ShB to current, the quote "you either die a hero or you live long enough to see yourself become the villain" started to become more and more apparent.

I've been encouraging my multiple(!!) friends who directly witnessed some pretty shocking ADA violations to file witness reports with the DoJ, and the Nevada AG. If you're reading this and you directly saw or experienced something, please do the same.

Instances of shoddy organisation and poor protection for attendees were most acute with ADA attendees, but not unique. EVERY SINGLE ATTENDEE I KNOW has a horror story, ranging from being catcalled repeatedly in the 100 meters between the road and the con hall, having their sentimental water bottle thrown into the trash by security, the entire debacle at the concert with the Elpis flowers, and with the hotel bar staff not getting the memo it was a CONCERT and loudly shouting and throwing items into sinks during the performance...

I honestly think attendees are owed some sort of apology, and I wasn't even one of them. Tickets were more expensive than last time, came with less than last time (no minion or ingame outfit), and the event overall had the organisation and professionality you'd expect from a first year anime con run by a 2-person LLC in a medium sized city. Not an international, multi-billion-dollar corporation promoting their flagship.

And again, that's even outside the ACTUAL law-breaking that took place by staff blatantly and callously failing to comply with the ADA.

Attendees:
If you witnessed a violation of the Americans with Disabilities Act by any staff, report it to the Department of Justice Civil Rights Department, and to the Attourney General's Office of Nevada. Even if you're "just" a witness, the victim may be too shaken or embarrassed to come forward; or, might have come forward and not been believed. Your honest testimony is important.

And if your weekend was at all spoiled by something that more staffing, better organisation, better training, or hiring a different venue could have prevented, let Square Enix know. They ought to have done better.