Friday, May 4, 2007

Steve Wyrick responds

During my interview with Steve Wyrick for next week's episode of "The Strip," I asked the Planet Hollywood magician about the lack of a hearing assistive device system in his theater. He said there is one and that the usher I asked -- actually it was the box office dude -- was mistaken.

That's really good to hear. But I think we're going to have to start putting pressure on these theaters to train their personnel since they frequently don't know. And, also, I've been told the Americans With Disabilities Act requires signage offering these devices to patrons.

This is developing...Hunter from RateVegas.Com suggested in a comment from the prior post that he might incorporate that question in his tracking of Vegas theaters. Great idea. Hopefully he'll do that.

What's more, though, is that I'd be curious if anyone offers audio description for the blind, which is starting to spread in Broadway theaters and some movie theaters. Man, that would be awful hard to do at "Ka," wouldn't it?

Stay tuned for the interview. There's definitely a Norm-worthy moment or two in it.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Having accessible devices for hearing impaired is not only important - its the law. During a trip to WLV with my friend and fellow VT writer Ace Copland (who relies on lip reading to communicate) we had a difficult time finding a show that a) we were all interested in b) he could be able to understand what was going on. His hearing is essentially nil so assistive devices aren't really an option. I truly wish he could listen to your podcasts - he'd love the interviews and you guys are a hoot. I know it would take an eternity, but how about getting an intern to type out some transcriptions?

Anonymous said...

I read a news article a few weeks ago about a company that has voice-to-text software. They sponsored a contest for the worlds fastest texter (i.e. on a cell phone). But they also showed off their software that a human speaking the same phrase as the worlds fastest texter could finish in like a fourth of the time it took to type. An interesting idea for podcasters to translate into transcripts.

THE STRIP PODCAST said...

Yeah, I do totally wish I had the time and money to get transcripts made of our shows. I know it's our loss. But hopefully Ace will want to buy a copy of my gay Vegas guidebook, due out in mere weeks now.