My awful experience with Ace Comic Con Phoenix
LONG POST WARNING:
I am not sure if it was only disabled individuals who had awful experiences at ace comic con Phoenix or if these positive ones are fake. But here. I’ll fully share my experience since I was vague before. Prior to purchasing tickets, booking flights etc I got in contact with ace to make sure that they had a disability policy in place. No where on their website is it stated and even the responses I got, no one could point me to a document explaining the policy. But this rep convinced me all would be well and I booked Sebastian Stan vip along with many other things including flights for myself and my 8 yr old daughter.
We had been told upon arrival register and then find an ace rep and they would make sure we were taken care of as per their disability policy. I must’ve asked about 15 different reps including their one at guest relations and the ace info booth and no one seemed to know of any policy or be on the same page. Irritated, I went down to the celeb photo ops redemption (missing the cap panel I wanted to see because hey, making sure I am accommodated and don’t have any sort of medical emergency is important). Celeb photo ops (they seemed rather pissed about this as well mind you) informed me that ace was telling them no one could be in their ada line unless they were in a wheelchair. I know the celeb photo ops staff rather well by this point attending so many cons and could tell they felt awful saying this to me.
I sort of had an emotional breakdown. Lead my daughter away from the crowds and into a hallway. Security saw how upset I was and offered me a chair to sit on and wanted to know what was wrong. I explained and even they were furious. One suggested getting me a wheelchair just so I didn’t have issues but I’m sorry, I find that insulting to anyone who does need a wheelchair (sort of like getting a disability sticker for your car when your disability fully allows you to walk just fine etc). They had me wait in a public hallway while I was hysterical for between 1-2 hours while they continuously tried to get in touch with someone there with Ace (I have neurological issues and my memory will not remember names easily). My daughter was hungry, I just wanted to go change at the hotel and calm down because I was in the clothes I’d been traveling in since 3am est and my expensive photo ops were quickly approaching.
Finally one of the heads of security (not any rep from ace at all showed up) came to talk to me. He wanted me to see ems. I really didn’t want to because I knew I was not at risk of anything, just severely emotionally stressed and semi traumatized by having to sit in a public hallway and being ignored by ace. This security officer called ems over anyways and they escort my daughter and I into a more private room. The security guard wa an aggressive talker but more in a very direct way and did genuinely seem to want to help me. Ems had me repeat everything. I kept explaining I’d go soon with whatever the security manager could try to figure out but I wanted to go to my hotel to change and feed my daughter. One of the ems gentleman said “so it’s more important to you to look good for photos than feed your daughter?” I wanted to snap and say something horrible at him but instead said obviously no I will feed her and if there’s no time I’ll look like this (crying puffy mess, wearing clothes I’d spilled soda on earlier and just feeling so shitty). I believe the security officer recognized the rudeness and out of line comment by the ems guy and told them they could go. I will say in the end the security manager and celeb photo ops talked and I ended up in the ada line (sort of) the first day but I wasn’t fully aware of what was happening and 2/3 ops were alright with the third being so horrible. When I finally got back to my hotel (mind you NO ONE from ace followed up or came around for this situation) I felt physically sick from the emotional drain and stress. I did take a moment to post on twitter “I will never attend another @/Acecomiccon again”. They were super quick to respond with “why?!?! What happened?” And I went on over like 20 tweets to explain why. They tried to blame security “they never actually were trying to reach us” (I’m either blind and deaf or ace was lying) “celeb photo ops shouldn’t have said that, they should have accommodated you” (I’ll get to celeb photo ops in a min but yeah more lies and pushing blame”. Then they asked me to email them which id already had. So then they asked me to contact their fb chat.
Let me tell you this was just a joy.... once again the blame game. They wouldn’t own up to the fact that anything their event did (rules, promising me prior to con etc) were their responsibility. Now I was NOT looking for freebies, redos, anything. Just wanted to be listened to and for them to somehow make up for the events that occurred that day. Nope. They told me they assured me the next day would go smoothly. Now, I don’t know about any of you but reading that, knowing they have no guarantee to back it? I was more pissed. I continued to try to resolve the issue or something and they kept reading my messages yet not responding (still haven’t). I took a few ss and added it to my twitter post. By then I felt so ill I passed out and then onto day two.
Sunday morning I woke up with my daughter and I both having the same attitude that today we were not going to let anyone ruin our time and just enjoy it. We had our vip seb op right before noon so when I arrived and saw chris from celeb photo ops I asked for a few moments of his time. To explain the day before. He seemed rather mortified. He asked to see my three ops from the day before. The two okay ones he agreed with cropping id be fine but when he saw the third he couldn’t help but laugh (trust me... the very obvious issue in my Mackie op was laughable). He basically told me to get that redone no matter what and what times I could do that. He also told me that day I’d be considered ada and not have issues. He even told me to email him directly and he would provide me with the raw (or at least higher quality than what normally is given) digital copies so I could do the cropping for the first two and just to represent his company well and do something nice and not asked for to make up for my issues. I had no prob with celeb photo ops at all this weekend and tbh Chris sort of saved the con for me. Along with a lot of the artists my daughter and I met while taking our time that morning and purchasing prints etc. Mid day I received a generic email from ace that they would contact me later in the week.... awesome.
Sunday was a success and I was happy. But no thanks to ace themselves, thanks to the amazing actions of some others. I went back on twitter, shared the ss from their responses and their email. They have blocked me and deleted any of their responses in my twitter threads..... mature. Not sure if their customer service will ever contact me or try to make things right but I do know I’m blocked one place, ignored on fb and got a generic email. For me the hero of the weekend was chris from celeb photo ops and their crew. Also the very polite amazing artists and some other attendees that were willing to help a stranger out at times.
So I rate this con honestly as a 0 out of 10 for the most part. I’ll attach ss so this review is complete for everyone. Sorry for the long read.
Here is a ss of the convo before I bought tickets. Assuring me about the policy etc.
Now here are ss of their customer service and continued shitty treatment after the incident.
Doubt I’ll hear from them in email later this week but just wanted to share my experience with Ace and especially as a disabled attendee.
