The 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.
Posts Categorized: Feis Reviews
Little Rock Feis Review 2014
The 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.
Golden State Feis Review 2014
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.
Hansen Keohane School Feis Review 2014
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.
Buckeye State Feis, PC/OC Review 2014
The 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.
Minneapolis Feis Review 2014
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!
Quincy Feis Review 2014
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.
West Virginia Feis Grades Day 2014
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….
West Virginia Feis PC/OC Day 2014
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.
North Coast Feis 2014 Grade Levels Review
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.
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