The North Coast Feis was held on February 2nd, 2013 at the IX Center in Cleveland, OH.
Venue – The IX Center was pretty good as a feis venue. The feis wasn’t in the main area of the IX Center, but instead, downstairs. Not fancy, and they seemed to have a little temperature issue in the champ area early afternoon (got very warm), but they got it worked out a bit later in the day.
Camping was not sufficient and viewer ‘bleed over’ into traffic areas was, as usual, an ‘annoyance’.
There were 7 stages labeled A – G, with G being the champ stage. It appeared to be a bit bigger compared to the other stages, which looked smallish to me (but I think they were 20 x 20). There was good separation between the stages though, and I didn’t really notice any of the ‘music confusion’ you get when stages are too close together. They seemed to be a little short on chairs for viewers, and probably could have used a few more per stage.
Parking was good, not all ‘close’, especially considering the snow, but plentiful.
Venue Score: 8.5
Judges – Really good judge rotation. Sometimes they would rotate twice between my daughters dances. She had 4 different judges for the 5 dances she did, so no complaints.
Judge Score: 9.5
Music -Each stage had its own musician and as mentioned above, there was no music bleed over due to good separation between the stages. The musician on our stage did not take a pee break that I saw. I heard no music complaints from anyone else.
Musician Score: 9.5
Food – I saw normal convention center fair, pizza, pretzels etc… but we didn’t eat there so I didn’t get a good look. I was surprised by drink prices though with $12 for a water, Gatorade and a soda.
They did have beer, but sorry @washcap37, no Yuengling, only Bud and Bud Light.
Food Score: 7
Vendors – The shoe guy, and feis t-shirts, but the girl child didn’t like the design. Wigs, as always, a nice jewelry booth I had not seen before, but really not too much else.The thing I thought was COOL, and had not seen at a feis before, was a photo booth, but I didn’t catch the prices. You can see all the vendors at the the feis site under Vendors.
Vendor Score: 8.5 (a little extra for originality)
Results – Great work on results, out really quickly and they used social media to post info, although not quite as quick as a walk to the ‘scoreboard’. I always complain about no Twitter or Facebook posting, but I can’t do that here.
Results Score: 10
Feis Flow – I think the number of stages helped with the flow. They did not have to put quite as many comps at each stage like at many feises and even with comps in the 20s, my daughter finished 5 dances in under 3 hours (including the Treble Reel at lunch). Great flow. Grouping of age comps would have sped it up some, but on our stage there were only about 3 age groups, so it was still quite good.
Feis Flow Score: 9
And the WTF Rating – a WTF Rating is 8.85 which is the BEST WTF review score so far. Great job North Coast!
