Peach State Feis Review 2014

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psfThe Peach State Feis was held May 2-3, 2014, in Atlanta, Georgia.  The feis was held at the Westin Atlanta Perimeter North.  This is the same location as last year.  The feis is run by Peach State Feis Inc.  Truly, this is a feis of the Drake School.  Their Southern Region feisanna, typically, are run under the supervision of the talented and famous Karl Drake.  New this year, is the inclusion of a Feis Fiesta, held after the Friday evening competitions.  This feis has no competitor cap.  It also includes many competitions for all ages and abilities.  From the Gaelic language, Celtic Art, and music competitions to their treble reels and traditional set competitions, this is a feis that promises to hold something for everyone.

Venue: 4 out of 10

This is a hotel feis.  By definition, hotel feisanna are spread out over several, tightly packed rooms, reached by traversing crowded, noisy hallways, and end with overworked volunteers in a poorly lit awards room or area.  The Peach State Feis is no exception.  It also could be called the Southern Sardine Feis.  You will feel as though you had been inside a sardine can, by the end of the feis.  The hotel is still undergoing construction.  There were no bathrooms on the feis level floor at all.  Everyone had to walk upstairs to use the restroom.  At registration Friday evening, the halls smelled like a summer camp cabin. Fortunately, the smells of dance bags, hair spray, sweat, and Mexican food soon over powered it.  The volunteers really did all they could to answer questions, guide parents, and corral dancers.  The grade level halls were noisy and crowded.  The stage was about 2 inches off of the floor.  There was room to walk.  Barely.  The feis awards room was at the end of the main hallway.  All the vendors were accessible on the main hallway.  The champs room was much quieter.  It was also very well lit, with a raised stage.  It should be noted that was no room to practice or stretch.

Vendors:  8 out of 10

Two of the vendors scheduled for the feis did not arrive.  Otherwise, it would have been a 10 out of 10.  The Drake School feisanna usually have a wide variety of excellent vendors.  This year, they included:

  • Specialized t shirts
  • Portable Speakers
  • Shoe and poodle sock vendor
  • Ireland/Celtic/Feis themed items
  • Celtic Fine Jewelry
  • Free Physical Therapy and Injury Evaluations
  • Wig and Hair Bobs
  • Crystal photographs

Food:  6 out of 10

Hotel concessions were available.  Bagels with cream cheese were $2.  The food was fine for a hotel feis.  There was also a restaurant and Starbucks down the hall.  The Starbucks prices were a bit higher than home.  $3.50 for a large iced, flavored coffee or a large regular cup of coffee.  If coffee is easily available, the Ash Wilkes is quite pleased.  Thus, the reason for the high food rating.  He enjoyed his coffee and stayed pleasant the entire feis.

Music:  8 out of 10

Accordions!  How thankful I was to hear those blessed accordions at all the stages.  Even with the din of the halls, you could hear the music.  The speakers were well above the heads of all the dancers.  The first few rounds of Advanced Beg, the musician started the music a bit roughly.  As the number progressed, the beginning of the dances became a smoother transition.  Having the counter on stage saved several people from timing errors, in my observation. With there being accordions at the feis, there was occasionally some musical carry over between the rooms.  Since the feis was a crowded, noisy one, this was only noticed rarely, and more often in the afternoon.

Parking: 5 out of 10

With there being no competitor cap, there is no telling how many people will be attending the feis.  No telling how many cars.  Also, since the event is held at a hotel, these same people will be looking for cars in a parking lot with other hotel guests.  I am sure you can see where this is going.  Parking was made more of a challenge with the hotel construction detours.

My personal recommendation is to arrive between 3 and 4:30pm on Friday night.  Be prepared to keep your car in your parking spot until your family is finished at this feis.  Easier said than done, I understand.  It is something to consider for next year.

Judges: 6 out of 10

Judges were kept at the same table for the morning grades.  The dancers were rotated.  There were 3 stages in the grades room.  1 stage in the champ room.  Depending on the number of grade level dances, the dancer may have danced for 3 different judges, or, they may have danced for 1 judge 3 times and the other judges only 1 time.  My personal preference is for a different judge for each dance competed.  This feis was more of a statistical probability game with judging.  It all depended on the number of dances, the rotation of the stage, and where each fell in the operation of the schedule.  The same rotation and judges were in place for the afternoon grade competition for Novice.  They were changed completely for the Prizewinner competitions.  One judge left before the end of Prizewinner competitions.  This complicated the remainder of the competitions for those 3 stages, leaving 2 judges for the room. (See also Feis Flow)

Results: 7 out of 10

Results were posted roughly 15-30 minutes after the completion of the dance.  A wide estimation range, I know.  Some dances were posted quickly.  Some dances did not post results for quite awhile.  It should be understood that the extreme crowding of the halls and hallways effected the runners ability to relay the scores to the tabulation room.  The medals were a change from last year.  This year, they were palm sized, embossed and enameled peaches, with the feis name and logo.  There were gold, silver, and bronze.  All other placements were copper colored and embossed, without the enamel.  Trophies were awarded for all traditional set placements, in addition to Prizewinner and Up.  Champions received various crystal gifts, trophies, sashes, and perpetual trophies, depending on their competition level, age, and placement.

Feis Flow: 7 out of 10

Some changes were made from last years schedule.  The Friday evening figure, language, music, and vocal competitions were held on the large ballroom stages.  They were followed by the Feis Fiesta party.  The evening competitions began almost 30 minutes late, which of course pushed the figures late.  The charity treble reel, at the Feis Fiesta, was postponed until the figures completed.  Of course, many of us now that the Drake School knows how to throw a great party.  The Feis Fiesta was a huge success, with money raised for the Children’s Hospital of Atlanta.  Piñatas ended the party.

The following morning, the grades schedule progressed very smoothly.  The feis started on time.  Lunch break occurred on schedule, at 12:10pm.  The stages resumed, for grades, close to 45 minutes later.  The rooms were both quieter and less crowded in the afternoon.  Towards the end of the day, a judge leaving early affected the schedule.  The final prizewinner and treble reel schedules went from three to two stages. The bathrooms being upstairs created delays, during what are usually short breaks for the judges.

Overall Feis Rating: 6 out of 10

What say you?

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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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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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West Virginia Feis Grades Day 2014

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The West Virginia Feis for Grades was held on March 22nd, 2014 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.

NOTE: This is for the Grades day of the feis (Saturday), which I did not attend, but I did have a comment or two from others so wanted to post them. If you have comments, please add them at the bottom. Thanks!

“I will only add that I wish when they are finishing a group prior to lunch they would push through and finish their TS. One of my biggest pet peeves is to finish their core dances and then have to wait around forever to do ONLY the TS after lunch. Of course this may just be me….

I think Jim Gravens did a great job of starting on time, and keeping the feis moving. Results were emailed on Sunday evening. The new floors were great, and none of my dancers danced in the dungeon room of stage 4…so it was a great feis. Results were a little slow in coming, I thought. Nice to see some new vendors, often I think we see the exact same ones at every Mid America feis.

My two cents!”

and from the Feis Chair:

” Thanks again for your very positive assessment.  (WhatTheFeis says – that part refers to the review I did for the PC/OC day)

The only thing is that the grades day(Sat) is the busiest part of the feis. We were able to do it in 8 hours with the usual  4 stages-3 in the main ballroom and the 4th in a smaller ballroom-Im lucky that i have very efficient,enthusiastic and dedicated volunteers.”

How would you rate the WV Feis for Grades?

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West Virginia Feis PC/OC Day 2014

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The West Virginia Feis PC/OC was held on March 23rd, 2014 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.

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

Venue – This is the third feis I have attended at the Hyatt, and though I wasn’t thrilled with the venue the first time, and even less impressed the second time, I didn’t mind it at all this time. Lots about the venue was the same, but considering it was a champ day, there were a LOT less people there and it made it a much more pleasant environment.

The syllabus listed 3 stages, but I only saw 2 (and actually didn’t realize there was a third). Stages 1 and 2 were in the large ballroom and were separated by a temporary partition. This was a much better setup than having 3 stages in the same room and allowed more chairs for viewers and better traffic flow. Combine that with less people and it was a win-win.

Stages were huge, I am guessing 30 x 30ish, or maybe bigger. It was hard to tell since they covered the normal 4 x 8 sheets of plywood (which is how I do my normal measuring) with that black material which made a much better dance platform. I did not see any falls and only one minor slip while I was watching the competitions.

Due to the level of the dancers, results were announced instead of posted. This was in the hallway on the way to the back doors and blocked the hallway completely, which was an inconvenience but only minor (depending of course on who you ask).

Camping seemed adequate and I saw no NO CAMPING signs. People did fill up viewers chairs and the tables that had been set up in one of the side rooms, but I rant about that elsewhere if you are interested. There were lots of chairs though, and we did not have any trouble finding seats.

The concessions and vendors were setup in the halls as in years past, but with less people, it wasn’t as congested.

Parking was plentiful but may have involved a bit of a walk depending on when you arrived. There was a way to pull right up to the hotel to drop off dancers and gear though. The feis did pay for parking which was cool and saved me $13.

Venue Score: 9 (so much better then the past with less people)

Judges – PC/OC  always has 3 judges monitoring the performance. You really don’t get much better than that. The judges seemed attentive on our stage and took no breaks that I saw.

Judge Score: 9.5

Music – Each stage had their own musician and there was a lot of distance between them. I could not hear the music from the other stage when I was watching dancers perform on our stage.

Musician Score: 9.5

Food – Same as for the last feis, breakfast sandwiches, hot dogs, pretzels, pizza, salad, drinks and sundries… all reasonably priced, except maybe the drinks which were $2.50 for a small bottle of soda. I didn’t eat but my wife said the fries had been sitting out for a while.

Food Score: 7

Vendors – They had the airbrush artist back which I like. Otherwise the standard feis tshirt guy, shoe booth, jewelry, feis and Irish themed apparel, knit goods, the wig stuff, nic-nacs, paddywacks, etc…

Vendor Score: 8.5

Results – As the morning progressed I was more and more impressed that ‘the feis guy’ would come out and announce ‘awards for X will be in 5 minutes’ about 15 minutes after the comp finished. Based on previous PC experience, this is the best PC/OC results I have seen. TGCs comp did take longer than the others, and was between 30 and 45 minutes, but there were a lot of dancers in her comp, so I can understand the extra time. Even with that, it was handled better than I have seen at this level so far.

Results Score: 9

Feis Flow – Big KUDOS for feis flow. ‘The feis guy (aka Jim)’ I refer to above was outstanding keeping things going, and keeping people informed on what was going on.  I saw a continuous flow of dancers within and between comps, and there was very little down time.

Jim also ran the results and kept that smooth and quick. He does have a ‘not from around here’ accent and speaks quickly, and my wife had a hard time keeping up when he read results, but I had no trouble, of course my Mum has that same accent 😉 .  If there was any comment, he could slow down a little.

From my viewpoint the flow was handled exceptionally well.

Feis Flow: 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: 9.5 – PC/OC is always helped by judges and music, but the Results and Flow did not disappoint either.

And the WTF Rating is 8.92… pretty good 😉  You can add in your rating in the What Say You section below.

EDITORS NOTE: During the results, Jim took an informal poll of the dancers. It has been the habit of the feis to give all dancers at this level an award considering they have worked so hard to get to this level. The poll was to see if that should continue, or if they should just award top half as it is for most other feiseanna. Seemed the majority (not all) of the dancers thought the status quo (all awarded) was the way to go.

My opinion was that I thought it was nice that they do that, but something seemed amiss. It was when my daughter and I were chatting on the way home that I figured out what that was. She said she liked the fact they gave awards to everyone, but by doing that, they were taking some recognition away from the top half placers. She suggested that maybe a different award might be appropriate, so that the dancers who placed had something signifying their placement, instead of the same award that they all got for participating. I tend to agree and hopefully that came out right 🙂

What Say You?

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North Coast Feis 2014 Grade Levels Review

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Our recent move up to PC (like how I said ‘our’, I really mean TGC 😉  ) I have had a hard time trying to capture review info for the entire feis. I guess I was grade specific before this though, so the tides have turned. Anyway, some WTF followers have graciously submitted their thoughts regarding the feis which can be found below.  Since their comments are listed with names on Facebook I have added first names here, but I did receive some comments from people who would prefer not to have their names listed.

If you have more comments, please add them in the comment section below.

“The incredible delay on Stage C for the grades was totally unacceptable but other than that it was a great Feis overall.

5 dances, same judge for 4 of them. Dancing stopped for 45 minutes because a judge had a conflict w one of the dancers waiting to take the stage so the poor girls sat in the chairs for an hour (it was the split 410TJ A/B group). First group danced and then they rotated and the new judge couldn’t score the 2nd group. 45 minutes later they moved two first Feis reel groups to the stage and then had the 510 TJ girls dance. Rotated the judges again and the one who judged the 410 TJA group came back and remained through HP and TS. We could have been done before noon and ended up still waiting for results at 2:00.

*TCG also said that the music was very hard to hear, especially when awards were being given out behind stage B and C. ”

Christy D.

*Editors Note: That TGC is Christie’s girl child, not mine. I think I need to trademark ‘TGC’ 😉

  •  Stage A – after lunch late start because of stage C with figures & TR but missing a judge was the problem
  • My dancer – 5 dances with 4 judges
  • I think ALL the vendors including Ballinvilla & the dresses would have fit in the bigger room
  • Didn’t know until after that sandwiches were available in a room by the used dress room
  • Results were up quickly
  • It was a good day for my dancers & I won a basket

Kristin

I had 2 dancers competing in the North Coast Feis, my 9yr old daughter and me 7yr old son, who was a 1st time feiser. Upon our arrival, it took forever to be checked in because we had to wait in a very long line for our “M” last name. I know that’s to be expected at a large feis. However, since we had a 1st time feiser also dancing, we had to then go to the end of another line and wait all over again instead of them just checking both in at the same time. The line’s were labeled, but you couldn’t see where to stand unless you were 1st in line… not 15-20 deep! We then assumed it was the farthest line to the left, which it was, but no one knew because you couldn’t see. So there was just one mass group of people all mixed together for 1st time feisers and A-?. It was just one big cluster @#$!. Everyone was complaining and confused, and in the wrong lines. By the time we made it through both lines, with everyone jumping in and out of lines because the were in the wrong lines, we had spent over a 1/2 just checking in.

Although we had arrived “early,” when we finally made it down to the camping area, we had no time to get ready due to the delay. It was so packed we had no place to set our things. I had 4 kids under the of age 9 in tow, and 4 adults, and there was no place to stand or sit to get ready except the main isles. Dance families had taken over huge areas in the camping sections and the stage seating areas, leaving no room for other dance families. We literally dressed and undressed the kids in the main isle for lack of space and time.

Furthermore, the judge that was supposed to be present for stage F was a no show due to severe weather up in Chicago. I can fully understand the situation, but it was so horribly dealt with. The 1st time feisers happened to assigned to stage F. We were supposed to check at stage F regardless even though they would be moved. Usually the 1st feisers are 1st up to compete, but in this case they had them on later.. much later. The didn’t even perform the reel until after 12pm. Since we had another dancer competing in 5 events on a different stage, it was hard to run back and forth to Stage F every 5 minutes to see when and where they were going to reassign the stage F dancers. When our son was finally up to dance, he sat another 1/2 hour until another stage came available. So while we would be watching one child perform on Stage E, our younger 1st time feiser would be escorted from Stage F in our absence. We immediately ran over both times to find out where they’d been reassigned the 1st feisers, but they had no idea, and just blew us off. So we had a hell of time finding the dancers and nearly missed our son perform for the 1st time ever due to their lack of knowledge and communication.

To make matters worse, there were only 3 – 1st time Feisers there that day, and when they finally did make it to a stage to dance, no one would step aside to allow the families of those 3 dancers to stand or sit to watch. I literally had to crawl on the floor between peoples legs to see my son dance for the first time.

As I mentioned before, the 1st time feisers didn’t even finish dancing until after 12pm. Couldn’t they have just had them dance there to short dances first thing in the morning, and gotten them out of the way of all the more experienced dancers? We didn’t get results until almost 1pm, and of course there was no rhyme or reason to how and which lane to stand in at the results table. Again, everyone was confused and complaining around us.

** As a side note, my daughter was a 1st time Feiser at the North Coast Feis a few years ago, and we had a poor experience that time too as “Newbies”. Having now had 2 dancers attend North Coast Feis as 1st time feisers, on two different occasions, bad experiences both times.. In my humble opinion, I don’t think I would recommend this feis to other 1st time feisers.

Sorry so long.. but I felt our experience was worth mentioning. Take what you will from it in your review.

Anonymous

This last comment was posted on the PC/OC review and I took the liberty of copying it here.

This was our first time at NCF. As the mom of a grade level dancer, I have a few thoughts (as I usually do. lol!).

There was a slightly unfortunate issue with Stage F (which is where my dancer was mainly scheduled to dance): it was missing a judge and a musician. I heard that the judge was stuck in Chicago, but never did hear about the musician. The communication about this was pretty much word-of-mouth and not everyone got the word. Understandably, there were some seriously irritated parents and dancers as dancers were shuffled from stage to stage. The teen volunteers at stage F were amazing. They kept their cool, and smiles, even when people were flat out yelling in their faces, and did an extraordinary job of making sure every dancer was present before any dance scheduled for Stage F began (regardless of where the dance had been transferred to). I can’t commend them enough. Those in charge….I can’t commend so much. Considering that I received an email seemingly every 3 minutes about PC/OC results, it is clear they had the ability to communicate what was happening with stage F and could have saved so much frustration just by communicating the information throughout the day to ensure everyone got the word. It would have made for a much more relaxed experience for everyone, especially their volunteers.

The stages felt a little smallish for my dancer (who is U13) and those older, and even leggier, than she is. They were well cared for, though, and I didn’t see any slipping or falls. The judge rotation was great! Best we’ve encountered thus far. She got to dance for, and get feedback from, about 4 judges for 6 dances. And they all gave helpful feedback, smiled at the dancers, and despite all the frustrations they were very encouraging to the dancers. Can’t complain about that. :-). My dancer also really appreciated that there was a fantastic practice stage!

The musicians were great, mostly accordions, and there wasn’t any music blending together from stage to stage. The musician at stage E got pretty upset because people kept jumping over the barrier behind her and it was quite disruptive. Why they didn’t have the tensabarriers set up to allow a walk way between stages D & E was a mystery. Not only was it annoying that there was only 1 way to enter the grade level stages, it also seemed rather unsafe given the number of people. Had there been an emergency, it would have been a bad situation. Hopefully that will be rethought next year.

I felt the space was plenty roomy and there was a lot of camping available, don’t know why people weren’t using it. Dining tables were at a premium and people were camping at them! Tables were “claimed” with stuff and then left largely unoccupied and we had to eat on the floor. Hopefully that will be forbidden in the future.

For the most part, results were posted very promptly. For whatever reason, however, my dancer’s last dance was not posted for 40 minutes. The vendors were all packing up, stages were being torn down, and there wasn’t much to do during the wait. It was very frustrating. Worth it though, as it was the 2nd place needed for my dancer to claim the title of “Novice” in all her dances. :-).

That’s the perspective of one grade level dancer’s mom……

Anonymous

Did you catch the barrier busting on stage E? I was so ticked off. Silly, thoughtless folk disturbing an entire competition busting thru where it says no entrance.

…Guess I’m one protective mama bear when it comes to those kids. Hoping folks want that too.

A Grade Level Stage Musician

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