I attended SacAnime with my friends in the summer of 2024. I flew in from DC to Sacramento. Knowing I was attending the Con for all three days, I informed the accessibility email that I was arriving at least a month in advance. They told me they had no plans yet but would make plans the sooner the convention took place.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

However, when I arrived to the ADA desk, they had nothing for me for anything else. They said they were able to set up live captions for the main events, but only those. The only events I was able to attend with equal access was the Bluey voice actor panel and the SpongeBob concert. I had no access to language at the smaller panels, despite communication ahead of time about ADA requirements.

Though I had a great time seeing other cosplays, I was missing out on more than half if not a majority of the convention that I spent hundreds, if not a thousand and half, to attend. I shouldn’t have to choose a different convention to visit my friends with that would provide equal access, I should be able to attend this one as well,

Live Captioning is free through various programs on the internet, whether with Live Caption provided by Google or through Otter.AI (with limited time) among others. This is a petition to ask SacAnime to be able to provide live captioning at all events in the future for d/Deaf and Hard of Hearing attendees, or any that request it as needed, including on smaller panels.