Well, then this particular hotel doesn't meet convention requirements and shouldn't be used again. Something has to change for next year; last weekend's situation was not only grossly inconvenient but was actually unsafe. If someone had called the fire marshal Saturday morning, when the only visible access to the second floor was a one-person wide broken escalator, the convention would have been shut down. (And, yes, I asked around if there was another stairway. I eventually found the fire stairs, but no one on the first floor seemed to know where they were. )