Little Rock Feis Review 2014

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Little Rock FeisThe Little Rock Feis was held on April 26, 2014. It was held in the Little Rock Statehouse Convention Center. Of course, you have already guessed that it was held in Little Rock, Arkansas. Judy McCafferty is the leading lady of both Arkansas feisanna. The other is held in Fort Smith, Arkansas, in November. This is the second time we have attended the Little Rock Feis

Venue: 8 out of 10

Being a fan of convention center feisanna, this location began my appreciation for such events. There was plenty of seating at the large stage, smaller stage, and awards stage. Camping was constantly monitored, politely, for neatness and traffic flow. The large, carpeted registration area and foyer, outside the feis hall, provided ample practice space for both hard and soft shoes. There were plenty of restrooms, which were kept neat and stocked the entire day. The stages were set up in the same pattern as last year. One change, which some appreciated, was to have the champion levels compete first, on the main stage. Concurrently, on the smaller performance stage, Prizewinner (Open) and Adult competitions were held. The stages were raised, with stair railings, back railings, and covered with a dance floor traction material. The material did become rippled, on all the performance stages. This made a few areas of the stages more difficult for dancing than others. The awards stage being in the same hall was a mixed blessing. The McCafferty School puts forward an excellent awards stage. A large podium takes center stage. It is flanked by tall, professional banners for the feis and school. The stage is large enough to accommodate all the placing dancers for champion awards presentations. Certain competitions were interrupted by the announcements. Or the awards were interrupted by the competitions. A few dancers missed their award presentations entirely, due to those difficulties. Towards the end of the day, they agreed to a compromise of low level microphone awards presentations and a louder volume for the stage speakers.

Parking was a block, or more away from the venue. The closest parking deck was $5 for the day. The fortunate few secured close metered spaces, which are free on the weekends. The rest either parked at their hotel and walked, or parked further away…and walked.

Vendors: 5 out of 10

There were 5 vendors at the feis, not including the volunteer selling school feis shirts. The most fascinating of these vendors displayed hand crafted musical instruments. One of my little darlings requested a Welsh pattern instrument, crafted in the 11th century style. Since the little darling has not yet mastered, or shown much interest, in the tin whistle we purchased sometime back, the request was declined. Our family does enjoy shopping for interesting Irish dance, Celtic, and Feis themed items. This was not the feis for such shopping.

Other vendors included one of each of the following:

  • Photography
  • Dressmaker
  • Wigs and Hair Bobs
  • Poodle Socks and Dancing shoes

Food: N/A

Convention center vending was available in the feis hall. Outside food and drinks were also permitted. We chose to bring in our own food and drink. So, my opinion of the feis food options is not included in this review.

Music: 6 out of 10

For me, the best musician to see at a feis is an accordionist. Truly, I did not appreciate an accordionist until we began to feis. The only time we saw an accordion was for a few of the figures and the family figure competition. The rest of the time, both performance stages were accompanied by extremely talented violinists. Even well mic’d, they were a challenge to hear on the stage, at the best of times. An echoing convention hall can distort the light notes of the violin. When the volume was raised on the performance stage speakers, it certainly improved for both dancers and spectators. At the beginning of the feis, if you were not within 2 rows of the stage, you could not hear the music being played at all. It made watching the hard shoe competitions a different experience. Especially since all the spectators could hear were the beats from the dancers.

Judges: 7 out of 10

Our little darlings danced solo steps for 2 different judges. One of the judges was for 2 of their soft shoe dances. They also danced for a different judge for their figure competition. Considering the size of the competition and the feis hall, I do believe the judges were rotated adequately. Some of the other competitors did not have the same judge rotation. The larger stage appeared to have an easier time of rotating judges between it’s 3 stages. The smaller stage, to one side of the hall, was a bit slower in the judge rotation. My little darlings danced all of their solo steps on the smaller stage. Their figures were danced on the larger stage. We watched several other dance friends on the larger stage throughout the day.

Results: 6 out of 10

For the most part, results for grade level dances were posted within 10 to 15 minutes of the competition’s completion. The treble reels and champion dancer awards presentations were another matter. Many dancers competed at 8:15am and were still waiting for their awards to be called an hour, or more later. Some treble reel awards did not take place until 2 hours after the competition had completed. This did delay several families ability to head to the Little Rock Zoo, or home, longer than expected. Of course, from the Novice level and up, if you entered in a treble reel special, you also earned a chance to climb the podium for your awards presentation. Little Rock and River Valley are among the few feisanna who do award Novice and Adult dancers on a podium for their treble reel specials. It is certainly a draw for competitiors for this feis. After all, what Irish dancer doesn’t want to be at the top of the podium?

Feis Flow: 4 out of 10

The feis offers several special competitions. Some, such as music and vocal competitions, are offered the night before. Others take place the day of the feis. In general, Judy McCafferty runs her feisanna in a quick and orderly manner. This was not a general feis day. Unfortunately, the figures, blind man treble reel specials, and stage schedules created unusual problems for the feis flow. Lunch break was cancelled, rescheduled, and scheduled yet again. Then, figure competitions and special competitions were moved from one stage to another. More than one competitor found themselves struggling to change their dancing shoes for competitions that ran out of order, on different stages than scheduled. Other figure competitions were started on one stage. Then, stopped, only to be restarted on a completely different stage. Even more confusing for competitors, the stage volunteers would promise to hold the competition, only to begin the competition without several competitors on stage. Many families found the confusion unexpected and challenging. Thankfully, Judy McCafferty handled all of the challenges with her usual grace, patience, and authority. The feis even ran ahead of schedule, ending just after 4pm, when it was scheduled to last until 6pm.

Overall Score: 7 out of 10.

What did you think?

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Golden State Feis Review 2014

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The 2014 Golden State Feis was held on March 29th and 30th at St. Mary’s Cathedral in San Francisco, Ca.  This was our third time attending.

Venue

This feis is held under the St. Mary’s Cathedal in the “basement” area as we call it. It is not really a basement, more like the ground floor. We have always liked this feis and one of the reasons is because of the venue. Beginners through Prizewinners are located in the very large room in the center of the building while Prelims, Champs and Adult competitions take place in another smaller but still fairly large room across the hall. Check-in, results and the art competition are located in another large room off the hall as well. The wide hallway wraps around the entire large room in the center with beautiful marble floors and although there are no hardshoes allowed, it offers plenty of practice room between dances. The stages are nice and big with marley flooring over plywood. We have never had any problems finding seats as there is always plenty of room. “Camping” is not a big issue at this feis as there are enough chairs for everyone and saving seats doesn’t pose a problem. I have noticed that there is much more “camping” on the floor versus seats in the Championship room due to the smaller size of the room. One thing that has been a bit of an annoyance the last few times has been the hanging of solo dresses for sale on all the doors in and out of the large room in the middle. People will hang the dresses on the top of the door as well as the push bar to open the door. And even though these doors stay open during the feis I have seen people knock the dresses down going in and out and I myself have done this one or twice trying to sidestep a hurried dancer rushing by. I think these dresses would fare much better on a provided dress rack. I know, myself, don’t really relish the idea of knocking down $1200 worth of dress on the floor and wondering how much bling I may have knocked off. As for parking, well, everyone that has ever been to San Francisco knows that parking and that city do not go together. Parking, however, is not usually too much of a problem if you time it right. Parking is free in the cathedral parking lot and if you get there early enough you can find a spot very close. We have also arrived at times where the ages were switching and were able to find a spot no problem.  If you are lucky, some parking spots are even covered, which we weren’t quite lucky enough to find this last time when, of course, it was pouring rain. Nothing like walking through the rain in a velvet school dress with tights, full makeup and a wig.

Judges

As is the usual in our area, we have one judge per stage with three to four stages dancing at once in the Beginner-Prizewinner categories. A few of the judges at this feis, however, seemed to be looking down at their notes more than watching the dancers. A couple of the judges really looked like they weren’t interested in being there and at the end of one age group just seemed like they had given up as they decided to have a conversation with each other instead of watching their dancers. Kind of disappointing since these dancers practice so hard for their few minutes of stage time.

Music

Pretty much the same guys at this venue for this feis and the other at this location and we love them. Very consistent, great musicians with a good sense of humor. Very professional.

Food

This feis offers one option in food. At the end of the back hallway a table is set up with coffee, water, soda, donuts, bagels, sandwiches and fruit. Beware, prices are high! We usually bring our own food to this one because after you park for free in the parking lot, the last thing you want to do lose your spot to go cavorting around San Francisco looking for food, having to pay for parking, dodging traffic and navigating around in the hour you get for lunch. There is nothing super close by and it’s just not worth it unless you really know the city.

Vendors

There are usually 5 to 6 vendors at this feis as well as the feis logo clothing booth. It’s been pretty consistent to have the wig booth, and the shoe booth. There is also an Irish jewelry and trinket booth that sells high quality sliver and gold Irish jewelry. One of the popular booths with the kids is the music/knick-knack/Imported candy booth. Plenty of snacks from the U.K. if your willing to pay the price. Also there is usually a vendor that has a little bit of all of the above and a few dresses and dress bags as well. Not a ton of choices, but a nice little smattering for the numbers this feis usually brings.

Results

Results are always timely and well displayed at this feis. I love that results pretty much have their own room so no huge crowds to plough through to sneak a look. The people running the results are very nice and helpful too. Lately, adults have been getting their scores for free as an incentive to keep dancing which is awesome so it doesn’t hurt to ask!

Feis Flow

This feis was very on time and flowed very nicely. The only thing that was mentioned was the changing of the dances from how they were listed on the schedule to being back to back. A few girls missed their dances due to this because they were not used to dances being back to back. Also, it took almost 2 hours for a special to be announced when the dancers in this dance were done dancing for the day and ready to go home. This happened in the middle of the day and I think it was a lack of communication on the part of the people in charge and the announcers.
Overall this feis is a very nice little feis that we have always enjoyed. It has been pretty consistent and we will definitely be going again next year. I give this feis 8.0

So, what did you think?

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Hansen Keohane School Feis Review 2014

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The 2014 Hansen Keohane School Feis was held Sunday April 13th at the Dedham High School and Dedham Middle School in Dedham, Massachusetts.

Venue

This Feis was held at 2 adjacent schools with the majority of the competitions, and all additional Feis happenings being held at the High School, with a select few Championship level competitions being held in the middle school. There seemed to be ample parking both in the school lots and on the surrounding streets. The high school was large and multi-leveled and getting from one place to another seemed to take quite some time. The competitions were held in 2 gyms in the high school, and then in one gym in the middle school. There were 4 stages in the gym that my daughter danced in, they were all connected in 1 long row, with now obvious markings showing where 1 stage ended, and the next began. Combine this with some of the smallest stages I have ever seen and the result is dancers dancing off the front of their stage, or sideways onto the stage beside their’s. If your competition was held in the Middle school gym, you first had to visit the High School to get your number, go down the street to get to your competition, and then go back over to the High School to get your results and awards, or partake of any of the other Feis happenings. Camping was ample in the halls of the school, as I said above the whole school seemed to be used.

Judges

My daughter danced four times and had the same judge for all 3 soft shoe dances, and a different judge for her hard shoe dance. This seems to be standard operating procedure for most feisanna that we attend.

Musicians

In the gym that my daughter danced in there was 1 musician for the 4 stages that were in there. Though during the time we were there only 2-3 of the stages were being used and in was for a single competition broken down into smaller evenly sized groups so this did not pose a problem at all. I do have a gripe with the musician as he did seem to occasionally play the wrong notes which seemed to throw the dancers off here and there. I do want to mention that at one point he stopped playing during the first few notes leading into a new dance to ask the people in the audience to quiet down as a show of respect to the dancers. I think that this was great, as we know it can get a bit loud in there.

Food

We had an after lunch start so we didn’t eat there.

Vendors

There looked to be a decent mix of vendors if you found yourself in need of something at this Feis, and they were off to the side and out of the way making them easy to shop. There was a shoe shop that offered the basics and had some fun stickers, water bottles etc, and a table with hair bows and hair bands and the like.

Results & Awards

Results seemed to be coming out randomly, and the area that they were located in was too small. The results were hand written and haphazardly placed under the level headings in a completely random order. My daughter’s competition was broken into 3 groups with 1 group’s result coming out pretty quickly, not my daughter’s of course, and the 2 remaining groups coming out quite some time later. I would say speed was about average, but organization was well below average.

One issue I have here is that unless you came in first you did not get a ribbon with your medal. Not a big deal, but we all know how the kids love to throw those medals on and wear them the rest of the day. Can’t do that without a ribbon.

Feis Flow

The flow was pretty decent all in all. The competitions seemed to be running on time more or less, and the time for results was average.

Scoring

The Feis itself was pretty average, no too bad, nor a clear stand out in my mind. However, I had a very poor experience regarding my daughter’s registration for this event. It took the school about 5 weeks to cash my check, leaving me wondering if they had received my registration at all. During this time I emailed 2 different addresses multiple time each, as well as called 2 different numbers leaving multiple messages. Not once was my email or voice-mail returned. A friend had a similar experience, and wasn’t sure their daughter was dancing until getting the competitor card that morning at the Feis, as they were not mailed to our dance school as was stated they would do in the syllabus.

With all this in mind I give this Feis a 5.

What Say You?

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A Parents Guide to Understanding Feis Judging

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dana-carvey-snlI am going to be honest, I don’t understand feis judging, at least not completely, so maybe the title is not quite right. Maybe this should be called ‘A Parents Guide to Helping Their Dancer Understand Why.’ Read the entire article over on Antonio Pacelli and let me know what you think.

If the link above does not work, you can copy and paste this into your browser’s address bar: https://www.antoniopacelli.com/community/article/a-parents-guide-to-understanding-feis-judging

ADDENDUM

In discussing the latest blog post with TGC yesterday, she mentioned a Voy post about bribing judges. In an effort to find that, I found another discussion that focuses on some of the politics behind judging.

Check out Zebadiah B’s comments. He hits some of the same points I mention in my post, only he did it years earlier (so much for my ‘original’ post idea 🙁  ) , but he also covers a topic I had not considered. The whole discussion is worth a read: http://www.dance.net/topic/8765577/1/Irish/politics-in-judging.html

MORE ADDENDUM

Had some interesting comments on our facebook page that I wanted to share (with the permission of the submitter). More food for thought.

“One of the factors that affects placing well in one dance and less well in another at the same feis is that all dancers “hear” some types of music better than others. We say there are “reel” people and “jig” people based on which type of music they respond better to. That extends to the other three types of music as well; some dancers who are very good at other types of music never can get the hang of slip jigs, for instance. There are dancers who excel at hornpipes but, unfortunately, dance their treble/double/heavy jigs as though they were hornpipes, and that creates problems. They may both be hardshoe dances but they demand different styles, and that’s true of the soft shoe dances as well. I had one elfin student who couldn’t score in her single jig to save her soul. I told her to growl before going on stage for single jig competition. It embarrassed the heck out of her but it worked – the single jig was the dance they boys did back in the era when boys weren’t allowed to compete slip jigs (late 1980’s; boys still don’t compete slips in champs) and they’re supposed to have an aggressive, muscular style while slips are flowing and graceful. Dancers who dance all their soft shoe dances with the same style will score well in those which fit that style but not so well in the others. That’s “musicality.””

and

“Also, does your school pass on adjudicators’ comments to the dancers? We do. A lot of them are “turnout” and “point” which are nearly universal, but the biggies are anything to do with timing or rhythm, and the kiss of death is “late start” which can put you in last place even if everything else was excellent. We feel that if the adjudicators took the time to write comments, our dancers need to see them. It helps to understand scores.”

Thanks Bill!

Buckeye State Feis, PC/OC Review 2014

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FeisLogo_nodateThe 6th Annual Buckeye State Feis was held on April 5th, 2014 at the The Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, Ohio.

NOTE: This is for the PC/OC stages and results. If you have comments for the Grades stages and results for the feis, please contact me and I can share them in a separate post, thanks!

Venue – This is the fifth feis I have attended at Vets Memorial. Buckeye has been held here every year since its inauguration,  and we have been to all except one due to a dance school change.

I like the venue. It is big and there is plenty of room for the stages to be spread and still be good size. There were six stages, but I was focused on Stage 1, the OC stage (but some PC comps ended up dancing on it), and Stage 2, the PC stage. Stage 1 was 40 x 32, and stage 2 was 32 x 32, which, if I remember correctly, are the biggest stages I have seen at a ‘normal’ feis.

I did see some a few slips and falls, but the feis volunteers were very proactive trying to stay on top of stage maintenance. Dancing came to a stop on one of the stages so they could mop it after one fall, and they kept a wet towel by the side of the stage so dancers could wet their shoes before dancing.

Seating was plentiful for the most part. There were some feis shaming incidents, but in general we were always able to sit to watch TGC dance.

Results for champs were held over on one side of the hall, away from most stages which was good, but, it was too close to the concessions. During one awards ceremony, they had three large comps, along with the parents and other observers waiting to hear results, and it was so packed that some dancers had a hard time getting to the front if they were called.

Camping, I thought, was pretty good, with lots of areas set aside to store gear. This made the feis shaming incidents more obnoxious because there was really no need to take up seats with gear.

The concessions (except the actual built-in stands) were grouped together on one side of the hall, and vendors were setup together towards the front of the hall. Very convenient, but see the note about Champ results above.

Parking was good and all located right next to the hall but may have involved a bit of a walk depending on when you arrived. There was a drop zone for dancers and gear. Parking was $7.

Venue Score: 8.5 

Judges – The PC/OC  stages, as always, had 3 judges each. They were attentive, kept things moving, and took very few breaks.

Judge Score: 9.5

Music – Lots of space between the stages, with each stage having their own musician. No musical confusion, and although I could hear other musicians from where I was sitting between dances, I could not hear them when our stage musician played.

Musician Score: 9.5

Food – They had the normal convention center fare in the halls concession stands, but they also brought in outside vendors, a gyro stand, a Hawaiian shaved ice truck, a specialty coffee truck, and some others. Prices were OK, but I thought drink prices were a bit gougy, and you weren’t ‘supposed’ to bring in coolers.

Food Score: 8

Vendors – George the shoe guy, with his daughter who follows WTF on FB… Hi George’s daughter!  🙂   A tie-dye t-shirt guy, the typical wig and feis jewelry booths, and one other small jewelry table. No real Irish swag, and TGC was disappointed that no one had any Irish candies 🙁  You can see a list of the vendors on the feis page.

Vendor Score: 7.5

Results – We got there kind of early (as usual) so there was a few hours between when we arrived and when TGC danced. We watched other champ comps, and it seemed that results for them were very slow. After TGC danced however, it was only about an hour before her results were announced, which, while not the best we have seen at this level, was better than I expected after monitoring for the previous few hours.

Results Score: 8.5

Feis Flow – Feis flow was pretty good. From the start of TGC’s first dance to the presentation of her comps results was between 2 and 2 and a half hours. The feis peoples were on top of what was going on on the stages, and rearranged stage use on the champ stages to keep things moving. Well done.

Feis Flow Score: 10

Scoring

Two part scoring with a Feis Score consisting of Judging, Music, Results and Flow, and then the overall consisting of everything.

Feis Score: 9.375 – PC/OC is always helped by judges and music, but the Results and especially Flow were pretty good.

And the WTF Rating is 8.79… Good job Buckeye!

What Say You?

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Minneapolis Feis Review 2014

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The Minneapolis Feis was held on April 5th, 2014 at the Minneapolis Convention Center in Minneapolis, Minnesota.  WTF and TGC were not able to attend this feis due to adjudicator conflicts, but some comments have come in from other participants so we thought we would share in an impromptu review.

“My review from day one of feis is that it was well organized, very nice that the boards for each stage were on TVs mounted high enough to see over heads. Plenty of chairs at stages.

No outside food and slim, crowded choices for lunch within but we were lucky to may grab lunch after. Minneap is a clean downtown with great sidewalk access too!

Only real complaint is they put beginners in a narrower room so to compensate, dancer lineup was in the hall behind the stage. But you could only exit the stage from the back of the room. So you either leave your 5 year old in their own in a giant convention center (!) or you bolt the second they go backstage to get back to the other end and stand to watch them dance. This was only on stage A-B, CDEF were traditional lineup to the side… so I’d suggest they have older dancers get dropped off not the littlest.”

Christy W.

Let me know if you have comments to share. Names are not necessary. Thanks!

What Say You?

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Quincy Feis Review 2014

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Special Thanks to Boston Feis Dad for sending in this review. Hopefully it is the first of many!

The 2014 Quincy Feis sponsored by the Forbes School of Irish Dance was held Sunday March 30th at the North Quincy High School in Quincy, Massachusetts.

Venue

This Feis was originally scheduled to be held at the Quincy High School but had to be moved to the North Quincy High school due to a double-booking. This information was posted on the school website, and also mentioned in the email from Feisweb that provided the dancer card. One main concern with this venue was a serious lack of parking. The school is located in a city just outside of Boston where the major means of transportation are bus or train. The school lot was very small, with many people being forced to park illegally at surrounding businesses, or on side streets that were posted with time limits of 1-2 hours. We all know that 1-2 hours at a Feis is simply not realistic. People had to leave their cars where they could, and had to hope not to be ticketed or towed.

Once inside we found that the Feis was running at least an hour late, and by the time my daughter danced it was closer to an hour-and-a-half late. The school was large but only a small part of it was being used and it felt very cramped. There were 8 stages, one for opens in an auditorium, and the other 7 in the gym. 6 stages were all in one area with 3 connected in a row back to back with another 3 stages. The stages were small and cramped, and more than a few times dancers found themselves on the wrong stage, leading to 4, and sometimes as many as 5 dancers on one small stage at a time. The 7th stage was in an adjacent area separated by a large plastic curtain. Seating was in the form of bleachers on one side of 3 stages, and standing room only on the others. The groups of dancers were large and were split at the time that they danced so some people would be forced to move once they had found a spot to watch their dancer as they were moved to a different stage.

Camping was here, there, and everywhere. From under the results, to all around the stages, and in the cafeteria. This left little room to try and view the results, let the volunteers stage the kids before dancing, or find a spot to practice a few steps.

Judges

My daughter danced four times and had the same judge for all 3 soft shoe dances, and a different judge for her hard shoe dance. There did not seem to be much in the way of a rotation for the judges. They also seemed to be getting a bit irritated by the confusion that came when a new group would take the stage and they would need to split the group due to it’s large number.

Musicians

As I said above, there was an area with 6 interconnected stages. These stages were all served by a SINGLE musician. This definitely led to the feis running behind schedule as all 6 stages could only move as fast as the slowest stage. Once you start factoring in different speeds for hard shoe dances, and the various options for the traditional set, you have a lot of dancers waiting around for their turn to dance. Another issue with the music is that the musician from the 7th stage could be heard at the other 6 stages and vice-versa due to insufficient separation. I also heard that one of the musicians early in the day was quite poor, and that the music was not being played at the proper speed.

Food

We had an after lunch start so we didn’t eat there. From the looks of it though the majority of people who were eating had soda and pizza, not much else looked to be offered.

Vendors

There were not many vendors at this Feis, and those who were there were very difficult to get to as they were sharing space in the cafeteria with people eating, changing and camping. I suppose if I NEEDED something I would have tried to make my way over, but the cramped space discouraged casual browsing.

Results & Awards

Results seemed to be coming out very slowly, which was unexpected as my daughter was part of the first group that danced after the lunch break. I assumed that they had caught up on all pre-lunch competitions during the break and while the after lunch comps were being danced. Then there was an issue with my dancer’s results. Due to confusion with splitting groups the judge had put the wrong competition number for her group. As the large group of frustrated parents, and tired dancers continued to wait word trickled through the crowd of the mistake made it’s way around and we found that our results had been on the wall for quite some time, just no one from Feisweb or the school had bothered to mention it. I can’t even imagine what happened when the competition that used the number that had been wrongly attributed to my daughter’s comps came through later in the afternoon.

Feis Flow

As I’m sure you have gleaned from the above sections, the flow was pretty bad at this feis. From a lack of parking, to cramped quarters, ever changing stages, and lots of standing around waiting for other stages to get done for the music to change.

Scoring

I am not going to score this feis as I do not think it would be entirely fair due to the forced venue change because of a double booking of the original venue. I did not attend the previous year’s feis, as my daughter wasn’t feising yet, but I hope that next year’s will be better organized.

 So What Did You Think?

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