The 2013 St. Catharines Feis was held on July 27th, 2013 in St. Catharine’s Ontario, Canada. This review is another linked in from Confessions of a Feis Mom’s Blog by WTF friend MaryMac962. You can read the review here.
If you would like to help review feiseanna in your area, please let me know!
*NOTE: We don’t duplicate another sites content for ethical reasons mainly, but it is also bad for search engine rankings, which is why we are doing this link thing 🙂
The 2013 Rochester Feis was held on July 13th, 2013 at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, NY. I did not attend this feis, but a personal friend and a long time friend of WTF did, and she offered to share the info with us.
So, without further ado, if you want to know more about the Rochester Feis, please see *the feis review on Confessions of a Feis Mom’s Blog.
Look for more reviews from MaryMac962 to appear linked here. I can’t make it to all the feiseanna 😉
If you would like to help review feiseanna in your area, please let me know!
*NOTE: It’s not a good idea to copy and paste another sites content so we stay on Google’s good side, which is why we are doing this link thing 🙂
aka – things are not always as they appear. This is the follow up article that I mentioned in my Dayton Feis review from last week.
I know I have mentioned many times that I have not run a feis, and have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but for the Dayton Feis, I had the privilege of working the morning shift in the results tabulation room. This was a great opportunity, one of those paradigm shifting things (if you are a Stephen Covey fan), that made me realize things are not always as they seem.
The room had 5 laptops setup for entries and it seems at least 3 of them were manned at any time. They had all been checked and rechecked, and the people who had done all the setup(fewer people than I assumed by the way) were ready. We were given an overview of the application since many of the volunteers had not worked results before. We were also given the contingency plan in case anything hit the fan, and that was to write out the results on paper, and send them to the results board. There was an ‘in’ basket were envelopes from the dance area came in, and an ‘out’ basket were results that had been entered and printed went, bound for the awards area to be posted for viewing.
As you can imagine, things started slowly. As envelopes started trickling in, ‘it’ hit the fan. As results were being entered, the application would shut down unexpectedly. As we started writing out the results to be posted, one of the Feis people was on the phone with tech support almost immediately, and in a relatively short amount of time, had a work around for the issue. Soon, all the laptops were churning out results pages.
At the laptops, there was a reader and an input person, and considering I am a geek in real life, I got to input results. The application was relatively easy to use, but I did have some usability issues with it, but I digress, as that has nothing to do with the feis or the people who ran it. The tag team concept worked pretty well, and there were often lags where we were waiting for envelopes to come in. There were also times when there were some waiting to be recorded, but I would say in general, from hitting the ‘in’ box to hitting the ‘out’ box, was generally less than 15 minutes.
This is where I had my paradigm shift, and probably the part where you are saying, ’15 minutes!? That is pretty darn good. Why so long to the boards?’
I had the same question. IMHO, I think there was a lag with the runners trying to keep up with things. Also, I cannot speak to the process at awards where the results went, were filed appropriately, and then posted, but can see where that could add to any apparent ‘lag’.
So, I wanted to compliment the Dayton Feis Results organizers on running results, no matter what my comments about the rest of the feis may have been, this part was done extremely well.
I guess my other point is, next time I say to myself or fellow feis goers, ‘I wonder what the hell the problem is in the results room’ I will stop and remember everything that goes into getting a result from the Judge, all the way to the wall.
In the interest of full disclosure – if you read my review, you know the girl child danced at Dayton and although I saw the score sheets from the judges for two of her dances, I did not enter the results for either of them into the system.
The 41st annual Dayton Feis was held on June 22nd, 2013 at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.
Venue – This is the second time I have done the Dayton Feis at Sinclair. If you are curious here is the review for last year. I don’t think the venue is bad, but I think it has a few limitations.
The feis was split into three floors of the building. The competitions held on the lowest level in an indoor track and field building, a second floor that had a cafeteria, the tabulation room and where the OC/PC presentations were done, and the top level where results were posted and awards were presented. Lots of stairs so not the best for people with limited mobility, but there were elevators available.
There were six stages, which in general were good sizes. The smallest was 24 x 20 and the largest was 32 x 32 (one of the champ stages). While the smaller stage is bigger than some I have seen, the issue with this one is that it was half of a joined stage (stages 5 & 6) that were split down the middle by a piece of tape. Last year I was OK with that, but I am less of a fan this year, especially with the size of some of the comps on those stages. These stages were sharing a musician like last year, but I do feel there was enough room to separate these two, add a little more size and still share the musician.
I saw multiple slips and falls and could see ‘stuff’ on one of the champ stages. Couldn’t tell if it was hair pins, or whatever, but it was obvious. I did not see any floor cleanup or mopping during the day, not saying there was none, but I saw none.
Chairs seemed adequate, a bit heavy for OC/PC but that seems to be the norm. There were lots of standing viewers.
Camping in the dance area was very limited, but the second level had a lot more area available, just not as convenient.
As mentioned, results and awards were on the third floor, and as long as you were done dancing, that was cool, you could just wait upstairs (which is also where you exited the building). Otherwise, having them two floors up caused a lot of walking and stairs during the day.
Parking was plentiful, pretty close, and only $2.
Vendors were at one end of the room, and there were a lot more than last year. I thought they were easy to get to, and separated nicely from the stages.
Venue Score: 8 Would have been better with more camping in the competition area and if everything was on the same floor, otherwise, really not that bad.
Judges – The girl child danced 4 times and was judged by 4 different judges. As good as it gets in my opinion.
Judge Score: 10
Music – All stages except 5 & 6 had their own musician. 5 & 6 shared one, but that really did not seem to be too much of an issue. I did witness one rather long stoppage when dancers were lined up on both stages, and they just milled about waiting for the musician to return.
Maybe my suggestion of separating stages 5 & 6 will be seen and they can add on another musician next year. 🙂
Musician Score: 7.5
Food – Using the college concession worked to the feis advantage. Food was plentiful, had some variety and was priced for college students. There were also healthy options like fruit cups and hummus and chips in addition to pizza etc…
Food Score: 9.5
Vendors – A big improvement over last year! George the shoe guy had his table, and the ribbon key chain lady, and the shortbread guy (if you are from this area, you probably know these people), and the wig people, and the t shirt table that had a nice variety of add-ons for the t-shirts. In addition though, there were several jewelry tables, and several vendors with Irish items like hats, scarves, shirts, nic nacs etc… A nice browsing/shopping experience.
Vendor Score: 9.5
Results – For reasons I will explain in another post this week, I thought the results were handled pretty well. The ones that I checked were up on the board within 30 minutes.
Dayton is an eFeis feis so electronic results were not available right away like some are on FeisWorx, and the feis was not tweeting or otherwise posting results electronically
Awards were on the same floor with the results, and they had a variety of awards available for Prizewinner 1st place winners.
If there were any negatives, it would be that the results needed to be posted in a more organized fashion. They were just posted as they came out and there was no order to them. IMHO, each comp should have been grouped together and posted in the same area on the board so all results for that comp could be easily viewed.
Results Score: 8
Feis Flow – Not too bad. We started at 10ish and had the last dance at around 3. Huge comps and lots of them slowed everything down a little, but without adding more stages, I don’t know how that could have been better. Our day would have been longer but they moved a few of the last dances to another stage to help get them get done earlier. The stages moved along pretty well I thought.
I did hear complaints that the lunch took to long with someone saying an hour and a half, but I was trying to sell a dress, eat some pizza and find my daughter, so I really did not notice.
Feis Flow Score: 7.5
Remember, scoring now has 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating for all items including the venue, food and vendors.
Feis Score – 8.25
And the WTF Rating – a 8.57. Great job Dayton!
Remember to look for a special Dayton Feis 2013 post coming later this week.
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The Indianapolis Feis was held on June 8th, 2013 at the Indianapolis Convention Center in Indianapolis, Indiana.
A NOTE OF THANKS! Some of you may have seen my tweets where we screwed up and failed to register for this feis. Realizing our mistake the Wednesday before the feis, I tweeted on Thursday what happened and that we would miss it. One of the moms from the school hosting the feis offered assistance and put me in touch with the registrar who gladly accepted our late registration, even though it was past the deadline. They turned a negative into a big positive.
NOTE: I am sorry to say since we left for vacation literally right after the feis, and I am just now getting to the review, nearly two weeks after the event, I may be a little light on the details. You do enough of these things and they all blend together.
Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Indianapolis Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Indianapolis Convention Center, and I thought it was excellent as a feis venue.
There was lots of room for camping but I thought stage layout was a bit cramped, especially for the two stages right as you walked in the door. The seating for those two backed up to each other with only about 10 feet or so as a walkway between. People tended to congregate in that area to view the dancing which made walking through there very difficult, and I am sorry to say, a lot of the time it was feis volunteers that were adding to the traffic jam.
This is another feis with huge stages. The smaller ones were 28 x 24 and the larger ones 32 x 32. I did not see any slip or trip issues and heard no complaints about stage condition. I seem to remember them mopping the stages but I am also suffering from vacation brain.
Seating was more than adequate for the OC & PC stages but was more limited for the other stages.
Feis results were posted on a big wall in the main hall outside the dance area, and awards were in a room on the other side of that same hallway, so it was all convenient.
Parking was very adequate and was only $5, but apparently we chose the farthest possible parking garage from where the actual dancing was, and walked for about 10 – 15 minutes to get to the dance hall.
Vendors were at one end of the dance hall/room kind of off by themselves. Concessions and bathrooms were outside the main area in the same hall as the results and awards.
Venue Score: 8.5 I think it could be better if they plan stage a little farther apart, otherwise great.
Judges – Daughter danced 2 times and had 2 different judges. That is what I like to see, but I determined the pattern for judge rotation was every hour, so it was possible to be judged multiple times by the same judge depending on how the comps ran. At least there was an obvious effort to rotate judges so kudos.
Judge Score: 8
Music – As far as I could tell, each stage had its own musician and there did not seem to be any issues, and I heard no complaints about the music.
Musician Score: 9.5
Food – Alright, gotta admit it, complete brain fart on this one… call it vacation fuzz, but I really don’t recall all the details, so, I won’t even include this. I can say I do not recall any real positives or negatives though.
Food Score: NA
Vendors – George the shoe guy, the feis tshirts, the wig ladies, the ribbon key fob lady, some jewelry etc… so over all, not terrible. See a complete list of the vendors.
Vendor Score: 7
Results – OK, this was this feis’s (what is the possessive of that word?) big negative. Results were posted extremely slowly, extremely…. not Akron slow, but slow enough for people to grumble about it and for people who were posting the results to apologize as they came out.
Results issues were compounded by technical difficulties and results came out both hand printed and from a printer.
Awards were right across from the results, so that was good.
Results Score: 4.5
Feis Flow -Not too bad. My daughters dances were split by lunch(which seemed to run long to me) and that always slows things down.
The stage we were on moved pretty well. The morning shift really seemed to have it together, and had dancers lined up and ready to go as soon as possible. The afternoon shift was not quite as organized. Here is where vacation fog sets in again… and the details are limited.
Feis Flow Score: 7
Remember, scoring now has 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating for all items including the venue, food and vendors.
Feis Score – 7.25
And the WTF Rating – a 7.41. A couple adjustments, could easily be higher, especially results 🙁
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The Detroit International Feis was held on June 1st, 2013 at the Ultimate Soccer Arena in Pontiac, Michigan.
Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Detroit Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Ultimate Soccer Arena, and I thought it was excellent as a feis venue.
There were six stages for the feis and compared to recent feiseanna I have been to, these were huge. I did the mental math for the one we were on at it was 32 x 24, which seemed to be the standard for the four under-champ stages, and the 2 champ stages were as big or bigger. Didn’t really do the mental math for those two.
The venue was huge so there was a lot of room between stages and for camping. Stands served as viewing seats for stages 1 – 4 and chairs were set up for stages 5 and 6, so there was plenty of seating. Instead of chairs for the dancers, there was a sideline bench, which I guess are readily available at a soccer stadium, next to each stage. Considering the size of some of the comps, they probably could have added an additional bench to each stage for the dancers.
I did see a few dancers trip on one spot on stage 4, and saw and heard of some slipping issues, but the feis staff was proactive and they took breaks to mop the stages.
Feis results were posted on a big wall in one corner of the room, and the awards were co-located in the same spot, so all very convenient.
Parking seemed adequate in front of the venue and was free. We got there when lots of people were showing up and easily found a spot a few hundred feet from the door.
Vendors were at one end of the room, and I personally thought they were a little close to stage 1 which had A LOT of dances on it, so it was fairly crowded to begin with. Concessions and bathrooms were outside the main area as well as a pub, but they were indoors and connected so were easy to get too. Wifi was available, but my 4G phone was faster.
Venue Score: 9.5 (not sure what a perfect venue is, maybe I will when I see it, but this one is pretty close)
Judges – Daughter danced 4 times and had 4 different judges. You know me, that’s as good as it gets, but it seemed like the other stages did not have as good a rotation, so I have to deduct a little.
Remember ‘distracted judge’ from the Cleveland Feis last weekend, well he was back, and we were a little disheartened to see him as the first judge for my daughter. But, since the girl child placed first in that dance, we no longer see his distraction as an issue, in fact, that man is brilliant 😉
Judge Score: 8.5
Music – Each stage had a musician or two, and speakers for the stage, and there did not seem to be any issues, and I heard no complaints about the music.
Musician Score: 9.5
Food – A complete 180 from the food experience we had in Cleveland. One concession was drinks, smoothies, coffee, healthier snacks, some breakfast pastry kind of stuff, candy bars, etc and the prices were closer to convenience store prices (maybe a bit higher) but nowhere near some of the bigger venue pricing. Another area had hamburgers, pizza, wraps, chicken strips, etc.. all very good size and tasty. Three of us ate lunch for about $17 including food and drink.
There was also a pub on premise and although I did not venture upstairs to see it, the beer prices I saw at a beer cart downstairs were similar to what you would pay in your neighborhood bar, so who could complain?
Food Score: 8.5
Vendors – George the shoe guy, the feis tshirts, the wig ladies, fun Irish stuff like Guinness jersies and Hanna Hats, a few artsy things, shortbread cookies, the engravers, etc… so over all, not bad. See a complete list of the vendors. Not quite the selection of some, but a nice mix.
Vendor Score: 8
Results – I was surprised/impressed, and maybe I never paid attention before, but FeisWorx had results posted for the events in usually 30 minutes or less. Hard copies did not make it to the wall for closer to 45 – 60 minutes. When we went to get an award, the people at the table were kind of amazed Feis Worx already had them, and could not do anything for us until they received their hard copy.
Awards were right there with the results, and I liked the color coded ribbons that went with each specific medal, a bronze ribbon on the third place medal for example.
If there were any negatives, other than the amount of time it took results to get to the wall, for those people not clued into the FeisWorx connection, it was the fact that at some times, there was only one person working the awards, and if she was busy filing result sheets, people would be lined up waiting to pick awards up.
Thinking back, taking an hour to get to the wall would probably have irritated me if I did not notice the FeisWorx option, so I can only give a pretty good score for results.
Results Score: 7
Feis Flow -Not bad. My daughter danced 3 dances and a special reel. We started at 930ish and were done at about 3, and I think this was due mainly to a longer than average (in my opinion) lunch, and the special events being held after lunch instead of during like at other feiseanna.
I also saw that Stage 1 was loaded down with competitions and when our stage was finishing, Stage 1 was at about the two thirds point on their dance list. I admit, I have never run a feis, but I think there was plenty of room in the venue to add at least two more stages and spread out the load a little bit. There were two judges sitting at one of the stages for a while, so it appears they may have had the judges available, but that is an assumption. Seating for viewers may be an issue here, but I thought there were too many chairs at Stage 6, and possibly stage 5 too. (Remember, all my opinion).
Also, the specials dances seemed really unorganized. They were supposed to start right after lunch and the feis staff did not seem to have any idea exactly where they were going to be held 10 – 15 minutes after lunch was supposed to end. When they got it sorted out, the girl child told me the judge for hers gathered the dancers and asked how many steps, how many dancers at a time, etc… so she (the judge) did not seem ready.
That last comment was more about the specials, and in general, I thought the feis was run fairly well.
Feis Flow Score: 7.5
Remember, scoring now has 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating for all items including the venue, food and vendors.
Feis Score – 8.125
And the WTF Rating – a 8.35. A very respectable score, great job Detroit!
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The Cleveland Feis was held on May 26th, 2013 at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.
Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Cleveland Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Wolstein Center, and I thought it was just OK as feis a venue.
There were ten listed performance stages for the feis, but I only saw eight of them in the arena (3 – 10) so I am not sure where stages 1 and 2 were, and therefore cannot comment on those. I walked the entire upper area of the arena, and the awards and vendor area, so 1 & 2 must have been in a different section of the arena if they were set up.
Each stage in the arena was separated by large curtains hanging down from the arena catwalks. The curtains were on 3 sides of each stage (except the one on the end) and really seemed to constrict the area around the stage, making them seem really tight. They were so crowded in fact, that they had the musicians crammed into one corner and there was only room for one row of dancers at a time during a set.
Stage 3 was the ‘big’ stage that I saw at 24 x 24 feet and the size seemed adequate, but I did see a number of dancers slip on that stage. Not sure if there were any high or slick spots. The other stages I saw were small-ish at 16 x 20 feet and I saw at least one dancer go off the edge of the stage and finish her set on the side. I think the stage size was OK, but a little bigger would have been better for some of the more advanced dancers who ‘travel’ while dancing.
There was probably 10 – 15 feet (it seemed) between the judges table and the first row of seats where viewers could watch the dancing, and very little room for dancers to line up for their dances next to the stage, so dancers tended to congregate in the 10 – 15 feet behind the judge. This not only made viewing difficult for people in lower seats, but also made it hard to get from one place to another on the floor.
Feis results were posted on a big temporary wall at the far end of the arena, and the awards were on the same end of the arena, so all fairly convenient.
Parking was adequate with a parking garage less than a minute walk from the center. It was pay parking but the pay machines I found were out of order, plus, by the time we left, the gates were raised so I cannot comment on the cost.
A negative, arenas are not the best for older viewers and those with mobility issues, as well as parents with small children and strollers. I did not see any elevators to get from the upper area to where the results were (not saying there were none). I also saw A LOT of people trip on the steps in the arena. Step heights, even the cement steps were uneven and a bit hard to navigate. (Not the feises issue but a venue issue).
Venue Score: 6
Judges – Daughter danced 4 times and had 2 different judges. With as many stages as they had, I would think they could have rotated more often.
Another thing I saw was one of the judges seemed to be very easily distracted by things going on around him. While the girls were dancing he would glance off to the sides and even behind him instead of watching what the dancers were doing. Others commented on this too.
Judge Score: 4
Music – Each stage had a musician or two, and as long as you were close to the stage, you could hear them fine. I asked my daughter if she had any issues hearing them and she said no. If you were higher in the arena, there was a lot of ‘musical confusion’ and it was hard to tell one musician from the other. The musician at stage 3 seemed really loud.
On stage 10 I understand there was some tempo issues and the musician was playing to fast for some of the dances.
Musician Score: 7
Food – Convention center food at stupid prices. It cost me $10 to get 2 pretzels and a bottle of water. Other food choices were pizza, hot dogs and nachos, if you could get those, since when lunch hit, the concession stands started running out of food. The one I was at had no pizza, only a few pretzels and from what I could tell, not enough hot dogs to feed the number of people in line. Small sodas were $3 and large were $5 just to show how stupid some of the other prices were.
A man I asked said the pizza he had wasn’t the worst he ever ate, for what that is worth. The pretzel my wife had was greasy and she could not eat it.
They also had a no outside food rule. Sorry, if you are going to have no outside food, you need to have:
Food Score: 1
Vendors – George the shoe guy, and the other shoe guy, the feis tshirts, some glittery stuff and a nice jewelry table, but no ‘fun’ Irish stuff.
Vendor Score: 5
Results – And it goes downhill from here…
The first result we waited for was not posted for nearly 2.5 hours. When I asked about it, the lady researched and found that it had been filed without being written on the wall. She did admit that it had still taken almost 2 hours to get to them. The results for the rest of the dances all hovered around the 1 hour mark.
Another issue is that they only had two people handling results and there seemed to be confusion posting, as I saw a number of results posted in the wrong comp numbers. Someone had complained to me about that before I even went to the results area and I thought it might have been a fluke, but while I was standing there, I pointed out to the poster that they had just put 412 results in the 512 comp blocks. There was a lot of comps and I think those people could have used some help to spread out the responsibility.
Results Score: 3
Feis Flow – Just OK. My daughter danced 4 dances and from start to finish (including waiting for results) she was done in about 4 hours. They only had three different age comps on the stage but they seemed to rotate a little slowly. I think the fact they could only put around 10 girls on stage at any one time, and some of the comps had over 25 dancers contributed to this.
I thought the awards table needed more help too. We were standing in line and the people behind the table would be moving stations, restocking awards etc… and we had to wait a bit to pick up an award. It seemed a bit unorganized and there were not set roles for the people working that area. It was a bit chaotic.
Feis Flow Score: 5
Been thinking about it and I probably need to separate the ‘feis’ score from the overall score since the feis people do not control (necessarily) the venue, food, or vendors. Scoring will now have 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating.
Feis Score – 4.75
And the WTF Rating – a 4.42. Sorry, a number of negatives hurt this feis overall.
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The 2nd Annual Bluegrass Feis was held on May 12th, 2013 at the Lexington Convention Center in Lexington, KY.
Read this whole review, starts a little negative but has its great points and finishes very strong!
Please add your feis rating for the Bluegrass Feis at the bottom of this review!
NOTE: If you are going to do two feisanna and write reviews in one weekend, take notes. Surprising how fast things overlap in the brain 🙂
Venue – This is the first feis I have attended at the Lexington Convention Center, and I liked the space for feis venue, but…There were seven performance stages in one large room but I do not think the space was used well for stage setup.
NOTE: We were in and out of this feis pretty quickly so I really only saw the OC/PC stage and the stage my daughter danced on. Comments about other stages appreciated.
Stage 7 was set up for OC and PC and it was big, but that is where good stage size stopped (remember my note above).
We were on Stage 5 which was literally attached to Stage 6 with only a strip of tape separating them. I saw dancers crossing over the tape while dancing, so if that is any indication, the stages were too small. Mix the stage size with some big comps and things were crowded.
Camping was adequate and as far as I could tell, people honored the No Camping signs. People did do that ‘camp in the viewing seats and right behind the seats for the stages’ thing, which made viewing more difficult. Seating at the stages for viewers was not to bad in spite of that, but if all the comps were big it would have been tight.
Feis results were posted on a big wall at the far end of the hall, kind of in one corner, and the awards were on the same end of the hall at the other corner, so fairly convenient.
Parking was adequate and FREE, but was a bit of a walk from the dance area. There was an option to drive up to drop off however.
Venue Score: 6 – Sorry, the stage setup was an issue in my opinion. (see note above)
Judges – Daughter danced 3 times and had 2 different judges. Would prefer a different judge for each dance, and I actually saw judges from the Queen City Feis sitting in the viewing area, so they were available for rotation, but I of course don’t have all the info. Rating is based on what could have been based on my observation.
Judge Score: 6
Music – Remembering I only saw our stage and the Champ stage. There was only one musician for stages 5 and 6, sitting behind the stage were the two stages were joined. There were times when one stage was waiting for the other to finish dancing before they could continue because of the musician issue.
Musician Score: 5
Food – I cannot rate food because I only saw one stand off to the side of the hall, and did not look for others. We did not eat there. Food score not included in this review.
Food Score: NA
Vendors – George the shoe guy, the feis tshirts, and a few small tables. Extremely limited. I like to shop for Irish stuff so this was disappointing.
Vendor Score: 5
Results – Here is were things start sounding a lot less negative 🙂 Great job here! Results were out quickly, and were in the 15-25 minute range. A friend tweeted me that FeisWorx was posting results real time, but the hard copy made it to the wall very quickly.
Results Score: 10
Feis Flow – Excellent! My daughter danced 3 dances (skipping the TJ again) and from start to finish (including waiting for results) she was done in about 2 hours. They had six different age comps on the stage and they rotated very quickly, but five of the six comps had only 5 – 10 dancers, one comp had over 20 dancers.
Something else that impressed me was the awards table. Each person at the table had a laptop and when the dancer walked up, they looked up the dancers number and had all the results for the dancer. No searching through folders, no hard copies, no initialing papers, etc… Very cool, first time I have seen that (I think).
Combine that with the quick results and good venue(potential to be better), I would say I was very pleased with the flow of the Bluegrass Feis.
Feis Flow Score: 10
And the WTF Rating – a 7.0. For only the second feis, I thought Bluegrass did a great job and the score was brought down by some things they could probably change fairly easily (I have never run a feis, so that is my opinion). I thought they did some things REALLY well and I highly recommended this feis. Looking forward to seeing it develop in the future.
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The 10th Annual Queen City Feis was held Saturday, May 11th, 2013 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH.
Venue – This is the third or fourth feis I have attended at the Duke energy Center, and I like it as a feis venue. There were seven performance stages in one large room and like Buckeye, the stages were spaced out well, but not so far apart that getting back and forth between stages was difficult. Stages 6 and 7 were for OC and PC and were really big. They were in the same room, but sectioned off by a partition. The other 5 stages seemed a bit bigger than what I am use to seeing, and if I figured right, 24 x 24 feet, at least the stage we were on was.
Camping was very adequate but it still amazes me that people cram into smaller areas and camp in the walkways to be near their stage when there is so much room available.
Seating at the stages for viewers was good.
Feis results were posted on a big wall on one end of the room and awards were right next to results lists, all very convenient.
Parking was sufficient in parking garages within a block of the hall, but a bit pricey at $10. Seemed higher than I remember from previous feiseanna, but there was a big pet expo at the Duke Energy Center too, so maybe they jacked it up a bit.
Venue Score: 8.5
Judges –Judge rotation was really good, my daughter danced three competitive dances and was judged by three different judges. She also did the Treble Reel and was judged by one of the three, but I don’t really count that as a repeat.
Judge Score: 10
Music – Considering how far apart the stages were, each stage had to have its own musician. No music bleed over and I did not see any major stoppages because of music issues.
Musician Score: 10
Food – Big venue concession stand, pretzels, chips, sandwiches, soda etc…, a little variety with paninis, cubans and some others. There some food carts for lemonade, shaved ice and smoothies. There was a coffee counter out in the ‘lobby’ that served Stabucks but was not a Starbucks.
For the food, I thought the prices were really high however. A salad was $8 or higher as were many of the sandwich options. A hot dog, $4, Gatorade $3.50, sodas over $2 and beer over $6. Trying to eat healthy was a bit cost prohibitive. Not impressed.
Food quality was not bad for what we did get however.
Food Score: 4
Vendors – George the shoe guy, a feis tshirt guy, and the ‘wig & stuff’ table, some jewelry, Irish nic nacs, the photographer, etc. There was a nuts and chocolate table that had some good stuff that was not too expensive.
See the complete vendor list.
Vendor Score: 8
Results – Very good, very fast… 15 minutes-ish for the results to hit the wall, maybe a little bit longer, but anything under 30 is not bad compared to some feisanna I have been too. This was particularly good.
I did not notice if there was any electronic posting as the paper copies were out so quick.
Results Score: 9
Feis Flow – Not too bad. My daughter had 3 competitive dances, skipping the TJ, and from start to finish (including waiting for results), she was done in about 6 hours, but there was a lunch break in there. They had six different age comps on the stage, and the comps were big, with most being spit into 2 groups each which slowed things down.
Combine that with the quick results and good venue, I would say the flow of the Queen City Feis was pretty darn good.
Feis Flow Score: 7.5 – a little slow.
And the WTF Rating, – a 8.14. Good judge rotation, good musician score really helped, bit I highly recommended this feis.
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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.
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