Buckeye State Feis
The 5th Annual Buckeye Feis was held on April 20th, 2013 at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, OH.
Please add your feis rating for the Buckeye State Feis at the bottom of this review!
We did not attend the 4th Annual due to a school change, but you can see my other Buckeye State Feis reviews here.
NOTE: I did not arrive till after 11 so comments are about the afternoon session of dancing.
Venue – This is the fourth feis I have attended at Vets Memorial, and I like it as a feis venue. There were six performance stages in one large room and I felt the stages were spaced out well but not so far apart that getting back and forth between was difficult. Stages 1 and 2 were for OC and PC and I didn’t take note of the size of #1, but I saw #2 and it was big. The remaining stages were all good size.
If there were any negatives regarding the stages, it was they appeared to be very slippery. I saw two falls and multiple slips in the 2 hours I was watching our stage, and heard of, and saw, other injuries due to falls on other stages. I did not see the crew mop the stage, but they did ‘dust it’ once, which I do not think is sufficient to keep the slipiness to a minimum.
Camping was available in the center of the venue and stages were on the outer perimeter. Camping was crowded but appeared sufficient and people generally seemed to respect the no camping signs.
Seating at the stages for viewers was a bit limited and IMHO there was room for more chairs for additional viewers.
Feis results were posted in a small area outside the big room and awards were in an area adjacent to both results and the big room, all very convenient.
Parking seemed sufficient but could have been a bit farther out depending on when you arrived. We got there in the transition from morning to afternoon sessions so were able to get fairly close, and either way there was a way to pull right up to the doors to drop off dancers and gear. Parking fee was $7 instead of the $8 posted on the site.
Venue Score: 7.5
Judges – I think this section is stuck on repeat… daughter danced four dances and was judged by three different judges.
Judge Score: 9
Music – Each stage had their own musicians and on stage 5 there were 2. I did not hear any ‘bleed over’ from one stage to the other and the dancers did not seem to have any issues.
Musician Score: 8.5
Food – Regular big venue concession stand, pretzels, chips, sandwiches, soda etc… Regular concession prices. They did bring in some food carts including crepes, pitas, shaved ice and coffee which added some variety to the norm. Prices in the carts were also ‘higher’ but not stupid high, and we tried the crepes, pitas and coffee carts and all were good
Food Score: 8
Vendors – Very limited, George the shoe guy, a tie-dye feis tshirt guy, and the ‘wig & stuff’ table, but that was it. No Irish garb, souvenirs, jewelry etc… a little dissapointing. I know, its a dance competition, not a shopping trip, but where else am I going to get my Irish SWAG fix?
Vendor Score: 6
Results – Big positive here! Results were out quickly, and for the first dance my daughter did, the results were out before the second dance started. Generally I would say they were posted on the wall in 15-25 minutes, although that seemed to slip a bit as the day progressed. I did find that many times however, FeisWorx had the results posted before a hard copy made it to the wall… why was I doing so much walking?
Results Score: 8
Feis Flow – Excellent! My daughter danced 4 dances and from start to finish (not including waiting for results) she was done in 2 hours. They had only five different age comps on the stage and they rotated quickly. This may be due to lower numbers in some of the comps but some had over 20 dancers.
Combine that with the quick results and good venue, I would say I was very pleased with the flow of the Buckeye Feis.
Feis Flow Score: 9
And the WTF Rating – a 8.0. Nice Job Buckeye! A highly recommended feis.
What did you think?
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