Monday, July 26, 2010

DeafNation World Expo: Thumb Down

I went to Las Vegas to attend the DeafNation World Expo thinking it would be an awesome experience. Thousands of deaf people converged to one place from all over the world. It'd be one huge party.

The reality:

The expo itself was just the same as all the local city expos that DeafNation travels to every year. There was nothing special about it with exception that Purple HOVRS had drawings to give away several netbooks. There was also a drawing to win Apple Iphones but that's by registration only without public drawings.

The main hotel was Treasure Island. The nightly social pool party was held in its pool. The guests were required to display either pink pool band or Expo band to get in at certain hours. The first night, I arrived to an insanely long line to enter the pool area. The hallway to the pool area was so congested one cannot navigate through. So I detoured to a bar off the hallway to wait out the line. It never moved. The capacity reached to its limit in the pool area so they closed the doors.

During one afternoon, the pool was open to the public, I walked in and was surprised to see a rather small pool area. What was DeafNation thinking using this pool area for nightly social party when they knew to expect THOUSANDS of us coming??

Granted, DeafNation selected Treasure Island as the headquarters hotel for its prime location and the connecting bridge to Venetian which also had a connecting building to Sands Convention Center where the Expo was held. HOWEVER, they should have had made VENETIAN the headquarter hotel because it had a bigger pool - three or four times the size of the pool at Treasure Island hotel. My guess is DeafNation did not select Venetian due to its pricey room rates. Despite that, they could have negotiated with Venetian to use its pool instead of Treasure Island by perhaps asking for room rate discounts for DeafNation guests to match the rates at Treasure Island.

Had they done that, most of us would be able to get into the pool party and have had a better time than standing and sweltering in a hot hallway in a line.

There were many special events which catered to a limited and certain people or by invitations only. Most workshops took place only in the first two or three days so those who arrived later in the week missed out on those. I think DeafNation could do better by scheduling the workshops throughout the week such as two times a week for one workshop, perhaps Tuesday and Thursday, so people who arrived later in the week could attend the Thursday workshop. I arrived on Wednesday, for instance. The keynote speakers also were scheduled to speak only an hour on one day of the week. Of course, I missed them all. They all were scheduled around 11 AM to noon. Many guests stayed up until wee hours of the morning and slept in late in the morning. They could do better by moving the keynote speakers to later in the day.

Many guests wanted to watch Blue Men performance. Guess what? There was no discount for the tickets. DeafNation could do better by negotiating with the concierge to give discounts for the DeafNation guests. They did for Cirque du Soliel's Mystere - 20% off which was not that much but indeed "better than nothing." I know Blue Men DO give discounts because I know as several of my friends who went to LV for a wedding got $12 tickets for Blue Men through the concierge. Cirque du Soliel is not everyone's cup of tea....more people would prefer Blue Men, so I wonder why DeafNation negotiated discounted tickets for Mystere and not Blue Men. Go figure.

There were also no discounts for Stratosphere and other featured tourism in LV.

So what most of the guests did? Of course, converge to Treasure Island and talk in their hallways and casinos. That was basically it. Guests walked into the bars to buy drinks and wandered through the hallways drunk. That was all they could do or afford to do. There were MANY underage young adults there who were DRUNK. Needlessly to say, they had their legit friends supply them with drinks. Ugh! How fun do you think it was to be in crowded hallways with drunken kids?

Many found the experience to be "fun" perhaps because they had never been to anyplace where the deaf was the majority as it was at Treasure Island. Everyone signed and monopolized nearly all the free space.

Hey, that'd sort be like being at Gallaudet. If anyone had gone to Gallaudet or NTID, they missed nothing at LV.

I did not attend the Deaf Universe Pageant as I don't care for it, however, I was told by those who attended that they were not impressed as they observed that the contestants did not appear prepared or composed to compete. Miss France won, by the way. I also did not attend the Friday social party at Mandalay Bay hotel of which I apparently did not miss out on as I was told it was too dark, crowded, and did not have enough tables for everyone - a waste of $20. Again, DeafNation missed the boat on the capacity.

While at a buffet, I passed a table seated by DeafNation people...they talked without signing. They were surrounded by mostly deaf and ASL users at that buffet. How rude was that? I learned that most of the DeafNation people were CODAs. No wonder they spoke, but they knew better. They should know it is taboo to speak without signing when in presence of deaf people - even in a public buffet.

So what did I enjoy at LV? Seeing some old friends, of course. I also missed MANY because of the sheer number of DeafNation guests. I saw pictures of those I missed seeing in pictures on Facebook. Sigh! Watching Mystere was an enjoyable 90-minute experience. But hey, I got to see it only once. The casinos were not nice to me - I lost money. But that's gambling for you. It was to be expected and I enjoyed the anticipation of winning money for a short while. I loved my hotel room - it was a double suite with its own mini kitchen, bathroom and TV - total privacy. Two complete suites for my friends and myself shared by a connecting kitchen and living room. It had a washing machine so I brought clean clothes home rather than the traditional smelly laundry bag. It had nice sofas for lounging which I did a bit due to excessive walking.

Overall, the Expo and its events earned a thumb-down from me. My hotel earned a thumb- up.