Originally Posted by flyquiet

Although I like to have the event at least meet halfway on the bill, I generally make the arrangements because I have spent thousands of dollars to attend a conference having filled in the "what accommodations do you need?" field and arrived only to discover that "we must not have downloaded that field from any of the forms", or to have the organizers subsequently refuse to provide the service when recomfirming ahead of time, or after making the arrangements interrogate the interpreter privately as to my attendance, or book truly atrociously unqualified people. There is truly a long way to go. I don't know many people who turn up as a "gotcha" unless there is a reasonable expectation of universal accessibility due to the nature of the event. More likely a misunderstanding, compounded by chronic experiences of being excluded getting temperatures up.