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

[m-cubicle.livejournal.com]

We will have to agree to disagree here. You seem content with the way the con is going. I have contacted security twice, but from what I've heard, they don't bother e-mailing you back. Sooner or later d*con staff will have to take responsibility for that convention getting out of hand, (which it has).

Pretending like it's the same convention it was in 2003 isn't going to fix a thing. You are implying the don't ask don't tell policy here, and as we've seen in other instances, it's not the best policy. Sooner or later they will have to man up. It's one of those situations where unfortunately, they will not pay attention to the problem until someone gets hit by an object coming off a higher floor or a girl gets raped. I say no more about it.

[trybutez.livejournal.com]

Hmmm.... I don't recall any of these actions to which you ascribe to me. I do agree we have to agree to disagree though. (is that a triple negative?)

I'm not content with the situation. I believe improvements could be, and should be made. I'm simply stating reasons, reasons you might not like, why the con officially might not like to publicize the subject and instead work to improve things behind the scenes, as it were.

It's most certainly not the same convention as '03, or '98, or '93. Take your pick. It never will be again. Some things are better, some things are worse, that's the nature of the beast. But... the measure of it is in seeing whether the TPTB learn from an experience and improve upon it next year. (Or in the case of registration, ten years later!)

I'm certainly not implying a DADT solution, and shame on you for implying that I'm implying. Infact, I want the opposite. I want anyone inappropriately touched or harassed to shout out at the top of their lungs. I want the police involved. I want charges. I want any ahole predator who sees D*C as an opportunity to be so scared out of his mind he wets himself at a look from a woman cosplaying Slave Leia. And you're right, that until someone *is* raped or killed, there probably won't be much in the way of action. At least, *public* action. The need hasn't arisen for *public* action.

A couple of years ago someone was murdered at SDCC. Yet tickets still sold out the following year. Last year someone was stabbed to death with a sword at my local Ren Faire. Yet they opened on time this year.

I don't like this stuff. I want to stop it before it happens. But you can be assured that the con isn't going to make it a news item until, well, it's a news item.