Fans and friends of Ashley Smith, or any of the Smith family for that matter, may already know that Ashley, a 3 time World Champion. is competing in the Heartbeat of Home Talent Search.
If you would like to support Ashley in this endeavor, go to http://talentsearch.heartbeatofhome.com/portfolio/ashley-smith/ and vote for her!
Good Luck Ashley!
OK, so can any of you picture your children doing Irish Dance if it was still like this?
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The West Virginia Feis was held on March 23 and 24th, 2013 at Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Pittsburgh Airport in Pittsburgh, PA. Since the feis was held in PA, I have listed it under both PA and WV reviews.
Please add your feis rating for the West Virginia Feis at the bottom of this review!
NOTE: This review focuses on Saturday only for this two day feis. OC and PC stages and judging therefore are not included in the review.
Venue – This is the second feis I have attended at the Hyatt, and for the last one, I said it ‘wasn’t terrible as a feis venue’, and I still go by that, HOWEVER, I liked it a lot less this time than the last. There were four performance stages, and while I peeked in on the fourth, most of my time was spent in the large ballroom with the three stages. As in my last review for this venue, stages were good size and had sufficient chairs for viewers. The traffic area around the stages was not adequate and moving was difficult, especially since some people congregated on the back wall and in front of the doors into the stage area.
A SPECIAL THANKS to a Feis Mom (who asked to remain anonymous) who volunteered to do a write-up for this feis. THANKS!
The Lavin Cassidy Feis was held on March 2, 2013 at the Grand Geneva, Lake Geneva, WI.
Venue – A very spacious and well laid out location for a feis. In all the stage areas there were plenty of seats and room for limited camping, and even room for some practice space in the stage area. Water was provided and the dispensers were frequently refilled and kept cold. Most of the stages were on the main floor with a few on the second floor, but were all very easily accessible A very handicap accessible feis as there was room to move around with a wheel chair if need be. Some congestion in the one stage area, but it was to be expected and nothing to complain about. Microphones were down in our stage area so if you weren’t watching the competition progress on your paper you were kind of in a pickle, but they were calling out for competitors very frequently. The stage helpers (hey still somewhat new to this and still in beg2) were good about getting the kids lined up and if you missed your competition they would get you in between other dances with no issue. The used dresses were in one of the coat check areas so they weren’t crammed in the back of a stage causing no room to stand. Also there was a shuttle service in the lot if you needed to park a distance or if you were staying up at Timber Ridge Lodge. Did not notice very many handicap spaces, but at least if walking was a issue for you there was the shuttle.
When we attended the North Coast Feis we stayed in downtown Cleveland which provided us a nice variety of eats. As I have in past posts on this blog, I wanted to point some of the restaurants out so the next time you feis in the area, you have an idea where you might want to try with a little info to back it up. Anyway, here goes for Cleveland…
Grumpys – We hit Grumpys for breakfast as it was between the hotel and the IX Center and was recommended by the hotel staff. This is one of those local places we were lucky enough to find. Great menu, huge portions of a lot of standard and not so standard breakfast fare, and VERY reasonable. This place will be our Cleveland breakfast place and I highly recommend it!
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’.
Click the link to listen to the attached sound…. I am sure you guys know what it is, but doesn’t it sound like a hail or really heavy rain storm with a few voices mixed in?
Comment if you know what it really is.
And speaking of the Gem City Feis, I met another nice family yesterday. I mentioned in another post that I find it very refreshing to see dancers who excel, but don’t get all ‘diva’ even though they are kicking butt, because I have seen quite a lot of that in the past. Met another such dancer and family.
First saw this dancer in Pittsburgh last week and got a chance to meet the Mom and Dad yesterday. Because of the uniqueness of the dancers name, I won’t mention it, but if they find this blog, I think they will know who they are.
The Gem City Feis was held on October 13th, 2012 at the Dayton Airport Expo Center in Vandalia, OH. What is it with these airport feises lately?
Venue – The Expo Center was great as a feis venue. Lots of room, plenty of space, plenty of area for camping. It was not ‘posh’, but the temperature was good and there was lots of room. They probably could have taped off a bigger area for camping then they actually did, since the camping filled up and became difficult to navigate in and out of, but the annoyance was minor.
NOTE: When you are done reading, please see the comments for a follow up by the Feis Chair.
The Pittsburgh Halloween Feis was held on October 6, 2012 at Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Pittsburgh Airport in Pittsburgh, PA.
Venue – The Hyatt wasn’t terrible as a feis venue, but I did have some ‘issues’ with it.
From the syllabus I see there were five stages but I really only saw three of them. They were good size and although they were all in the same room, there was adequate room to move between them. They also had sufficient chairs for viewers.
