We decided to get to the event about 1.5 hours before it started to try and get a parking spot. For those that don't understand why we would get there so early, this is actually normal for people with disabilities where parking can be an issue for them. Most events normally don't have enough parking let alone enough handicap parking. The night before I checked out a map of the event and saw that they had one whole lot designated for handicap. I was thinking great, but it didn't turn out like that. When we got there the lot that was supposed to be handicap only was filled with regular cars. One nice security lady said that it was due to the church goers and took us to another lot where we could park.
After reading in the car, we got in the line that had started to form. I will say that that I did like them doing the weapons check. At the same time they were making people dump out water bottles, and then saying they could refill them inside. I hoping they were just worried about people sneaking in alcohol, but in a Colorado summer family friendly event, it was probably just water. Their choice, but it didn't look good to the average person, just petty. They were also stamping people's hands if you wanted to drink since they had run out of the 21 over wrist bands.
Once in is where we started to notice the real trouble. The first vendor we stopped at turned out to be a red flag for how the whole event was going to go. The vendor was 2 Greeks, and we had found a $20 t-shirt we wanted. We took it to them, they did the tax thing and said it would be $21 and some odd change. My mom took out $22 and went to hand it to them when the guy said that he would have to round it up to $22 since he didn't have change. Some people may be ok with this, but it is a form of theft. Any business owner is responsible for returning money past the purchase price and does not have a right to keep the extra as a 'tip.' We told him to forget it and we would come back later when they had a chance to get change. (More on this situation later).
From here we ducked into a few other booths, but didn't really see anything we wanted to buy. Most of the stuff for sell in the section (west side) just felt like your average sounivor shop finds instead of really authentic Greek products. I even found a few things that had a made in China sticker on the bottom. Next was bathroom time. Most fully abled people don't have to think about using a restroom or the impact that one can have on them. The event did have port-a-potties, but from what I saw none of them were the disabled friendly ones (or at least as friendly as current disabled port-a-potties are). One worker told us that the building we were next to had actual bathrooms that were also open to the public. When we went in there was a male employee sitting there directing people. When we asked about where the restrooms were he said up stairs. Thinking in our modern world there must be an elevator that was our next question. He responded with "It's broke." Another female worker near by had heard our conversation and went on to tell us that it had broken on Friday and had even trapped a person in it when it had broken.
So... this is where you get a true test of an event and the main event planner. This event had no work around even though they had part of Friday and all day Saturday to come up with something before we were there on Sunday. To be truthful there was a simple fix if they couldn't get the elevator fixed quickly. I'll tell you the fix right now so you can see how simple it was if they had a person worth their salt leading the event (extra points for you if you know the history behind that phrase). What you would need is a couple of workers, a golf cart, and 3 walkie-talkies. You would need to place one worker by each of the main doors (one up stairs and one down stairs) then have the third one driving the golf cart. The golf cart could be rented easy enough or borrowed. When someone with mobility issues starts asking about the elevators the worker could contact the golf cart person to come and get them. For a specific example with use for it. The golf cart would have picked us up on the lower side of the building, drove us up the hill and through the entrance we came in through, go around the front of the building, back through the other entrance (so that we wouldn't have to pay to get back in), and drop us off at the top building entrance. The the golf cart worker could have either stayed up there while we did our thing and saw the top side of the event, or they could have just told us to have the top floor worker page him when we were ready to go back to the lower level. If you are wondering what would happen with wheel chairs there could have been a worker, maybe same as golf cart driver, that could have helped push the person back up the hill and help with navigation of reentrance through the other entrance so that the people wouldn't have to pay again.
This shows just one way the situation could have been addressed. I will admit that I have over 10 years of event planning experience working with large crowds which has helped me to develop skills on how to address situations when they happen including how to apply ADA thinking and JEDI thinking to those situations. My experience is what allows me to pick apart events like this and see both their failures and what they need to do to fix them. For an event that has been around for 60 years, they either should have already been tracking how to work out situations like this or if they have a high turn over of workers, hire people with years of experience that can handle the shit hitting the fan.
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