Was TwitchCon EU accessible?

This weekend was TwitchCon EU, where streamers, gamers and industry people all gather to talk, share experiences and agree on why streaming is the best thing since slice bread!

But for us who are disabled, it can be scary travling to events without knowing if it was made with us in mind. So this is my experience as an accessible badge holder at #TwitchconEU! ????

It's never easy to ask for accommodation as someone with invisible illnesses/disabilities, as you often can feel jugded for needing help by others... Sadly that was something I did experience sometimes, but other times everything worked great!

So let's talk about my different experiences:

1. Badge pickup - went great, the signs were easy to follow, big legible text and all of the crew/staff knew what I was looking for and directed people to the correct line.

No question of WHY I needed it, and it all went smoothly. I had pre-booked this on Twitch webpage, but they did have blue stickers there as well, so I assume you could also ask for it when picking up your badge (but this is just me guessing). The badge pickup opened the day before the con, making it quite chill.

2. Entrance - and here is where that all stopped working, sadly...

When I arrived the morning of the first day, I was sent to three different places to enter. When I tried going to the entrance with the sign for an accessible entrance I was turned away... I asked why and was told they had put the sign at the wrong place... I later found out other had been let though there, so it seems like it all depended on who you met. This is not ok, as it makes both a huge cognitive barriers, and it makes a problem for us who do not look like we need accessibility due to our illnesses being invisible...

When I got back to the main line I had started to shake quite visible, and luckily I found a crew member that understood that I needed to get in, and let me use a line that was at this point almost empty...

Accessibility should NEVER rely on luck. This needs to be done better next time!

3. Meet and Greets - The crew there was amazing. Not only did she walk with me over to where I needed to wait (as I was still quite shaky), she also got a bench for me to sit on so I could sit in one spot and "wait in line". Worked wonders! 10/10

4. Panels - This is a yey and meh at the same time. All the queues for panels had their own accessibility line (marked) and benches you could sit at if needed, and they let disabled people in earlier quite often. Inside they always had a bunch of seats marked for accessibility. This was great!

The problem was really bad captions... They were live captions (that is never easy) that you could access with your phone. The problem was that they relied on access to internet... Yeah, that ain't gonna happen at a convention at this size.. So they were lagging, and often not working at all... It was easier to use it on Sunday compared to Saturday, but still not ideal.

5. AFK (quiet rooms) - The rooms were both located at first and second floor. You had access to water, a dark and quiet place, puzzles and some books for colouring. This was needed, as the convention was large, loud and somewhat overwhelming at times. Saturday was packed with people, and I saw people getting problems handling the amount of people. Lucky the first aid people at the event was really good at handling this, and keep the patient away from being filmed by all the streamers at the event.

There were also nursing rooms and a changing room with a lift! Quite impressive.

6. Getting around - everything was quite massive, but there were easy to understand signs EVERYWHERE! Also quite often they had maps showing where you were. I'm glad this was a thing, as you could easily get lost in the big Expo hall. There was also the possibility to rent wheelchairs, and this worked on a first come, first serve prinsip.

7. App - The app was good to have, the map worked ok and I was impressed that they sent out a notification to everyone about the captions for the pannels now being live. I wish that the disabled toilets was marked in the app though! It was great with all the signs showing you where to find the closest toilet, but irritating when the app took you to the non-disabled toilet and you needed to start finding a second one that might be accessible for you.

All in all I will say it was good event! Some staff were informed and understood what the Badges means. Others not so much... Where there is a huge room for improvement is with entrance to the location and captions of the panels.

The event felt welcoming for us disabled gamer, and I will return, but hope they will see this and add the improvments that is needed.

See you next year TwitchCon!