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The ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) “covers only about 60 percent of accessibility barriers, and the enforcement of the ADA is spotty,” says accessible events expert John Sage.
During his 20s, John Sage, who uses a wheelchair, spent a lot of time traveling in Europe, and found it “hugely time-consuming to plan trips,” he told Convene. “There were always accessibility surprises.”
As a result of his experiences, Sage saw an opportunity to help others with disabilities plan their travel with greater ease, founding Sage Traveling in 2009. Four years ago, he launched Sage Inclusion, to advance accessibility with training, assessments, certification, and marketing, also focused on the travel industry — and including events. “I’m on the World Travel & Tourism Council, and what we’ve recognized more recently is that the events industry could benefit from tools and resources and expertise,” he said. “I’ve been all over the world attending events and every event has something that frustrates me regarding accessibility.”
John Sage
Frustration is the lens through which event organizers need to think of accessibility, Sage said. “That’s what impacts the purchasing decision of the disabled individual. Any frustration is something worth taking a look at to address.”
Sage, whose company certified Convening Leaders 2025 in Houston in January as an accessible event, co-presented a session, “Revolutionizing Event Accessibility: A First-Person Approach,” with Salesforce’s accessibility manager, Amy Wood, and also took about 40 participants on an accessibility tour around the George R. Brown Convention Center.
He offered a framework for accessible events across four levels in his session. The first level, he said, is exclusion — Bob, who uses a wheelchair, cannot enter the venue. The second is segregation — Bob must use a different vehicle than his colleagues to get to an off-site reception. His needs are accommodated but it’s not a positive experience.
He finds that many events operate at the third level: integration, where the attendee has to do the groundwork. “Finding the accessible hotel accommodation, finding the accessible ground transportation, if that’s left up to the attendee, that’s a lot of work on their part,” he told Convene. “They, quite likely, might say they’re not going to attend because they have to do all this work. Now, if the event organizer has contracted with [fully accessible] hotels and arranged transportation, and they do the work proactively, then it’s not left up to every individual disabled attendee to figure out their own way. It’s done centrally and makes it very convenient.”
When that happens, you’ve achieved inclusion, the fourth level. Attendees don’t have to make any extra effort because of their disability to plan their travel, accommodations, or on-site experience.
Having an Impact
Around 20 percent of Americans have a disability, Sage said, and he’s observed that their individual voices aren’t always heard. “If I go up to a hotel manager and I say, ‘You need to fix this in your bathroom,’ and I come back six months later, is anything going to be done? Probably not.” Event organizers, on the other hand, have the potential to make a significant impact, he said. “If event organizers include accessibility as early as the RFP process — asking: ‘What are your accessibility features? Are you accessibility-certified? Will you commit to becoming accessibility certified if we sign this contract?’ — then the purchasing power of the event organizer and the able-bodied population starts to make the ROI of accessibility investments much higher, because you’re winning a whole event, not just one disabled traveler staying for three nights. We think the events industry using their purchasing power can be a game changer for accessible travel. The business case is such that it’s not only the right thing to do, but there’s a business benefit to it.”
The ADA (Americans With Disabilities Act) “covers only about 60 percent of accessibility barriers, and the enforcement of the ADA is spotty,” he said. “The ADA doesn’t cover things like furniture. It doesn’t cover human-to-human interaction and processes and policies. Even though the ADA exists, there are still accessibility barriers all over the place,” he said, including at conventions, particularly on the show floor.
Removing those barriers often benefits all attendees, like “the people who are carrying exhibit set up,” Sage said. “They would like the motion-activated door instead of the manual door.”
When Planning Accessible Meetings, Timing Is Everything
To demonstrate that an event is inclusive, said Sage Inclusion CEO John Sage, its accessibility assessment and documentation needs to be published before registration even opens.
“What normally happens when I register for a conference,” Sage said, is there’s a box to check for any accessibility needs. “There are two problems with that,” he said. “One is, I don’t know what the accessibility landscape is, so I can’t tell you what you need to do to meet my needs. Then the second is that all my needs would take pages to write — ‘I need this height and this width,’ and all these other things.” Consequently, many people with disabilities do not list everything an event organizer needs to do in order to create a positive experience.
It also precludes an entire group from registering in the first place. “The only people who are considered are people who register, not all the people who don’t attend,” he said. “You never hear from them. What needs to happen to be an accessible event is it needs to be done proactively with the documentation published so that I know — before I register and pay — if it meets my accessibility needs. It needs to be done much further in advance” and include detailed photographs with captions and measurements, he said.
Another missing piece: Event organizers “only communicate about accessibility with the people who have identified themselves as disabled,” Sage added. “Not everybody with a disability does that. They’re not going to fill out that box if they have a bad knee and can’t walk a mile. They are not really going to consider themselves disabled, but they might want to know that the ballpark is a few blocks away from the convention center. That information needs to be pushed out to everybody.”
Michelle Russell is editor in chief of Convene.
Ascent is supported by the PCMA Foundation.