Security at Dragon*Con 2011

[m-cubicle.livejournal.com]

EDIT: With the great response this post is getting, let's try and make something happen here. Send Dragon*con security any ideas you may have in ways to improve security for the 2011 show. Go to the contact security form through the D*Con web page. Get as many people as you can to do the same. Pass the word along. Select "security" from the drop down menu. The hotels and Dragon*con MUST agree to start checking badges or room keys at the hotel entrances  to keep the non-con goers out.  Why should we pay and others not?!

dragoncon.org/dc_contact.php

Since it doesn't seem like anyone has addressed this issue for D*Con 2011 recently, I will go ahead and put it on the table.

As I'm sure many others noticed, last year there were several security concerns during the convention. I remember reading all the different posts of women being accosted and "felt up" by individuals who had no badge and nothing to do with the convention itself. Letters were mailed to the hotel and complaints filed. Since then, it has all gone quiet.... Has anything been done by the hotel or Dragon*Con to alleviate this problem? Or, are the powers that be just hoping we would all forget about it and just deal for next year?

I have noticed every year the convention getting more and more filled with people who have come to the hotels thinking they would be getting a free "freaks on parade" show. Individuals include: Football fans, nearby college students, and random people off the street hoping to get a free good time at the expense of those who paid to be there. It's not the same convention it was 5 years ago, the con is changing and not for the good.

Before I go dumping more hard earned money on a convention that is already getting ridiculously priced, are any of these issues going to be addressed? What is to keep random grabby pervs away from my girlfriend or friends? With everything getting expensive these days, I need some re-assurances that this will be a safe convention and the money will be well spent. I wonder what the ratio is of people who just wander in off the streets is, to those who actually paid for a badge?

Comments

[jarissa.livejournal.com]

My personal sorting procedure goes like this:

* "Yes" means "yes". All else is "no".
* At Dragon*Con, it's perfectly logical to ask first. And expect a genuine answer. We're all nerds and geeks together. That works if the question is "May I take your photo?" or "May I practice 'talking to strangers' with you for the next ten minutes?" or "May I hug you?" or "Do you mind if I reach in there and untangle your armor strap?" or "Would you care to go up to my hotel room and be worshipped like the avatar of the divine which you clearly are?" The important thing is to present the question so it's clear that either answer will be respected.

After that, though ... I'd kind of like to see a couple of panels on "Reading Body Language". Watching Lie To Me* has helped. Getting older has helped. Going to D*C for six years has helped. The Backup Project, and links I've followed off that community, have helped. But sometimes, I have no idea what's going on, and a nagging suspicion that I ought to be able to interpret how other people are reacting to the situation with much more detail.

[trybutez.livejournal.com]

Girls always are, and always have been, a mystery to me. Usually my wife has to tell me when a girl is flirting/interested in me. Curiously, she also has no problem informing me when *I* am flirting with them... even when I don't think I am. ANYway...

I agree with the original point, that if everyone's afraid to do anything, then something could be lost, nay, *will* be lost. Spontaniety, if you will... I think I told this story before; At one of my first D*C's, the missus and I were in the dealer room, and she was looking at a pair of leather gloves, commenting about how she wanted them but they were too expensive.

My response was "So? Get them." A complete stranger, a woman in the booth, overheard this, turned around and hugged me while saying something along the lines of how awesome I was and I was a keeper. I, of course, knew these things already... If she'd had to ask before hugging me, it would have ruined the moment.

So while everyone might have different rules/levels, etc... what I keep in mind is that while I might not mind random strangers hugging *me*, random strangers might not like *me* hugging them.

Also...there's a *big* difference between humping someone you've had an hour long conversation with, or hugging a stranger for a good deed, or proselytizing people to your hedonistic ways through your sound reasoning and compliments to their grace and beauty.... And grabbing someone's butt on the escalator. That's not only bad form, it's just plain lazy. A crime, literally, of opportunity. If you wouldn't do it under other circumstances, you probably shouldn't do it under *any* circumstances.

[pixiekingtom.livejournal.com]

Hear hear, good man!
I've gotten random hugs at con (Usually when giving out samples of my honey rum or pixie sticks)and given a few simply because it felt right at the moment. Unfortunately there are too many who do not think things through on appropriateness or worse, KNOW that it's an inappropriate action and go through with it for the thrill and bragging rights. Although if it was me and I heard some twit bragging to his buddies about this awesome set of melons that he squeezed when she wasn't looking I may throw HIM off the 4th balcony into the Pulse bar.
I may be a deviant and a perv, but I'm a RESPECTFUL deviant, damnit!

[dulcimeoww.livejournal.com]

After years among the huggy Quakers and then moving into arenas where huggy was not the norm, I developed the habit of asking first, especially after I enthusiastically hugged a friend and accidentally knocked her over and injured her. I felt so terrible about it!

But at the same time that I'm busy asking permission and valuing being asked (particularly about photos, which I find mildly torturous), I'm aware that it has created a certain distance from others, which I regret. I guess ultimately, there's no way to have the cake and eat it, too. We all just have to pay attention to what is or is not welcome, and if we accidentally overstep, we must be sincere in our regret and apologies.

The real trick is getting people who haven't learned that respect (or aren't thinking of it) to, well... learn it. Most of the time, I doubt it's the respectful people who are overstepping. Maybe there could be a PSA on D*CTV or something? Maybe put TV screens or projectors with it on a loop with a few other videos in the room full of registration lines? Maybe put a "No Non-Consensual Groping" sign up above any escalators, so that people on them will see it, and put the PSA on the video screens in the Hyatt elevators? Maybe we can just saturate the most likely offensive zones with reminders to act like a grownup, and hope a few of them stick.

I dunno, that's a lot of maybes, but I feel like the problem here isn't lack of security but lack of awareness. It seems like awareness should be the part we address, either awareness of right and wrong, or awareness of potential consequences as I previously proposed.

[pixiekingtom.livejournal.com]

"Maybe there could be a PSA on D*CTV or something?"
Fun!

I'm a naturally tactile person, so I hug, I shake hands, I grope friends with whom I have an understanding, and occasionally screw up, so I understand where you're coming from. Generally it's pretty easy to see the difference in someone who accidentally steps over a boundary and those who are grabby douchebags, although the line can be blurred at times.

The last few years the problem has been mainly with outsiders who have been coming to the con hotels (many of whom are non guests at the hotels) becasue they were told about the easy hot chicks in skimpy costumee - something that I've noticed at Goth clubs and some renfaires as well ("she's wearing THOSE clothes, so she wants to be grabbed and groped!"). I've gotten flack from this, but the fratboy culture that has popped up in this country has evolved (devolved?)into "party hard, do what you want, it's not real life so there's no consequences".

[glasscannon.livejournal.com]

Your "Fun!" comment plus your icon makes me think there's something to this DCTV PSA idea -- maybe Kirk teaching a young ensign how to pursue (green) women without crossing the line into skeezy or threatening? ;)

[pixiekingtom.livejournal.com]

Oh I like this!

[ydnic.livejournal.com]

There are two gentlemen from Kentucky (called "The Traveling Revelers") who attend some of the Southern conventions and present panels of the type you seek. We scheduled them in at AnachroCon this past year. The panels are mostly about flirting and how to meet people at cons, but they DO contain a heavy component of 'how to read body language.'

I might could get them to present a panel on the Alt History Track, although I'd have to have them call it the "History of Flirting" or somesuch....:)

[littledrow.livejournal.com]

I like this!