Chicago Autumn Feis 2014 Review/0 Comments/in , , /by

chicago_autumn_feis_2014The 12th Annual Chicago Autumn Feis was held on Sunday, November 9, 2014 at North Central College in Naperville IL .

I can’t speak to PC/OC level, nor did our school have any at that level here due to Oirachtas practice.

Venue

Aside from streets being blocked due to a marathon, it was easy enough to get to the field house at North Central College. The parking was limited, but there was a shuttle that was much appreciated to take us from the lot to the field house. Unfortunately, the shuttle stopped transporting before my Prizewinner dancer finished dancing. The facility was clean initially, and restrooms seemed to be kept up. I didn’t see any cleaning of the floors throughout the day, possibly because there was no floor space open because of the crowding. Camping was supposed to be done on the balcony level, but few people did this and it was not enforced. The competition area was very crowded and it was difficult to move from one stage to another to watch other dancers on their respective stages. There was ample seating set up, however, dancers had strewn their belongings in seats and across bleachers, taking away from the available seating. Maybe not the best venue for 1,200 dancers and their families.

I give it a 7.

Judges

There were 12 judges and 8 stages. Judges seemed to rotate about every hour. I noticed on the score board that beginner levels were placing up to 7th or 8th place, and many of the novice and Prizewinner often only placed 1st through 3rd. This seemed unusual.

Score: 8

Musicians

My dancers didn’t say they couldn’t hear the music well enough and all sets seemed to be played at the right speeds.

Score:10

Food

There were few choices for food by one vendor. The $5 hotdogs and snack sized chip bags I found to be pricey. They had a fruit bowl available and maybe two other choices of meal deals and plenty of junk food. There was no mention of not being allowed to bring in outside food and drink.

Score: 8

Vendors

There was a large selection and variety of vendors. Some that were not the usuals.

Score: 10

Results

Here’s where it goes downhill. I was told morning results were posted within 45 minutes. One of my dancers waited an hour and a half for her results. Results were typed but in a font that was difficult to read from the other side of the results tables and included dancer name and number. There were no online results available, in fact, they will not be available until “sometime the week after the Feis”. They ran out of 3rd place medals and offered smaller medals that they were giving to 4-8th place. You could also opt to have them mail a silver medal when they get more made.

Score: 4

Feis Flow

On the stage schedule it stated that Novice dances would start approximately 9:30. It was around 10:45. The Prizewinner dances were scheduled to start at 1:00. Beginner levels typically had 1 dance in between dances. Novice and PW dancers had 2-3 dances in between dances. Soft shoe competitions were first. Lunch break was 1/2 hour and the judges and musicians were great about getting started on time after lunch, and was staggered a little so there wasn’t a mad rush at the food vendor.While one stage did, the others still had up to as many as two complete dances left to get through, with sections of A and B and boys or mixed. This was truly the Feis that never ended! At 5:00 they finally did the last treble reel, and they still had non-traditional sets going after this was completed. All said, it didn’t flow quickly and made for a miserable afternoon/evening for many dancers and their families. I heard many complaints from tired dancers and irritated parents, while I waited at the results table with my dancer.

Score: 4

Local Amenities

I can’t speak for the Feis hotel or hotels in the area, but Naperville seemed like a quaint little town with several options for restaurants.

EDITORS NOTE: She is right, it is and does. Here are a few places I found when I was there last year: https://whatthefeis.com/naperville-il-eats/

Judge, music, results and flow average: 6.5

Overall: 7.29

What did you think?

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Naperville, IL Eats

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We had the opportunity to spend a little time in Naperville after the Chicago Autumn Feis and I wanted to mention a few places that may be worth a visit if you are a food fan.

Quigley’s Irish Pub

Guiness SnakebiteQuigley’s is on Jefferson, pretty much in downtown Naperville. It is a nice place and has that dark, wood paneled walls and big booths atmosphere you would find in a pub in Ireland, they even got the smell right. Nice cold pints and some pretty decent Irish food make it a nice place for a beer after a hard morning of feisin’, or for a lunch, dinner or just a snack.

I had a lamb stew with some Irish bread that was pretty good and their chips went really well with the beer. There were some kid options so everyone was able to find something they wanted. I heard the Reuben rolls are worth a trip there all by themselves.

It was a bit pricey for a meal and feeding the family, but a pint and some chips wouldn’t set you back to much. Definitely worth a visit.

Le Chocolat du Bouchard

chocolateLe Chocolat du Brochard on Washington is also downtown, just a short walk from Quigleys. It is easily the most outrageous chocolate store I have ever been in, and has a huge selection of custom confections.

After browsing and asking questions of the extremely helpful staff, we made some selections and then stepped next door to the attached cafe for an espresso to have with our chocolates. In addition to coffees, the cafe has specialty drinks and desserts, and is a perfect ending to a walk around Naperville.

There is a little sticker shock at the price per pound for the chocolates, but it is a nice treat and highly recommended.

Chicago Autumn Feis 2013

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caf2013_logoThe 11th Annual Chicago Autumn Feis was held on Saturday, November 9, 2013 at the North Central College in Naperville, IL. This is the second time I have attended this feis, the last when it was held back to back with the Prairie State Feis at Ho-Chunk back in 2011. I liked that venue better 😉

Venue

The feis was held in the indoor track of North Central College and it could be great venue if there weren’t 9 gazillion people at the feis. Very crowded with inadequate camping is the best way to describe it.

caf2013

See, 9 gazillion people, and it was this crowded from one end of the hall to the other.

8 stages surrounded the outer walls of the huge room. Stages 1 – 4 and 7 were for Teams and First Feis through Prizewinner, and 5, 6 and 8 were for Champ dances.  All the stages seemed to be 24 x 20 or larger, but it was hard to tell on some because they were covered with the black material that is becoming more popular at feiseanna. The black covered ones ‘I think’ were all PC/OC stages and were a bit bigger.

Stages were separated nicely and seemed to have good space between them. (Someone remind me to start getting stage pics will ya, that might be helpful).

I saw no slips or falls and I saw mopping going on on at least Stage 7 at lunch time.

Seating was in chairs with additional seating on metal bleachers set up behind the chairs, and seemed to be adequate, at least for the stage we were at. There was a LOT of standing all around the venue so I may be wrong on the amount of seating, or people were just tired of sitting.

RANT – Whoever decided it was a good idea to fill the front row of seats at stage 8 with their gear, and only occupy no more than half the chairs, and typically only one or two, throughout the day, you were wrong, not a good idea and actually kind of rude. There are plenty of people who did not need to be navigating those thin bleacher steps who were much better suited for using those front row seats more than your stuff. Sorry, but if you aren’t going to use the chairs, move your crap. – END RANT

Camping was very limited and although I like good vendors (and this feis had good vendors), they took up entirely too much room in the center of the hall. I think if this feis returns to this venue, that needs to be thought out a bit better, less space between vendors and more camping.

Parking, eeeessh, don’t get me started. We dropped off and parked about 1/2 mile from the venue. Could be, in fact 97% sure it is, the worst feis parking I have seen.

Judges

Since we are in PC (see how I said we… OK, OK, TGC is PC now) and are judged differently, I did not notice the Judge rotation, in fact, that is not the only thing that I was not as attentive to, and this may be the beginning a ‘feis review transition learning curve’ now that TGC is in the ‘big time’  😉

There were 16 judges scheduled at the feis, and if there were 9 taken up by the 3 PC/OC stages, that would have left 7 for the remaining 5 stages. There were enough to rotate, and I did see at least 1 judge change on the stage we were on, but I did not notice if all three changed or just one.

Anyone notice the judge rotation and if so, would you mind sharing in the comments?

Musicians

Every stage had their own, always a plus, and I heard no complaints about musical confusion (aka bleed over), but it was really loud in some areas so I am not sure how it was for the dancers.

Food

A local company catered the event and they had a nice variety of items at reasonable prices. Salads, sandwiches, pop corn, nachos, fruit cups, hotdogs etc… all less than $5. They did seem to run out of sandwiches pretty quick though.

Vendors

They had a real nice assortment of vendors at this feis, but my buddy George was not there. Shoes and wigs of course, and lots of knits and ceramics, sweatshirts and other items, and I was able to buy and share with my family Smarties, aka Irish M&Ms that I first had from my GrandMums shop on Achill Island in Ireland (insert lovely flashback to the lighthearted days of youth music). Short of the Michigan Irish Music Fest or the Dublin Irish Festival that have coinciding feiseanna, this was one of the better Irish swag collections. They had feis tshirts stuck off in a corner, so hidden I almost missed it, and I thought their prices were a bit high, $50 for a hoodie with a sticker on it? Come on…

Results & Awards

Results and awards were at the far end of the venue, right next to each other so they were convenient. Although I was not frantically checking the results wall like in every previous feis I have been to, I tried to make a point of gauging how soon results were being posted, and if I had to guesstimate, I would say it was in the 30 minute range, so not spectacular.

This was also my first experience with the PC award process. I thought that was a bit ‘tedious’ for our first time out, and it was about 2.5 hours from the end of the dancing till the announcing of the standings. There was a lunch in there and there were A LOT of dancers in the comp (if you follow me on Facebook, I posted on Saturday that there was about 150 dancers in the comp… I was j/k, it just seemed that way). I really have no prior experience to compare this too so I guess time will tell.

Once again, feedback from other attendees on either of these points appreciated.

Feis Flow

We got there early because I am really anal about not being late, and TGC wanted to be ready for anything. She did not dance till after 11 so there was a lot of ‘killing-time’ in the interim. The stage she was on kept a good pace though, and even with all the dancers in her comp, she was done dancing in about an hour.

Looking at the schedule for other stages, I would guess that there are probably a variety of opinions on the flow. Some stages had comps with only had 2 or 3 dances between individual dances, and some had 7 to 10 dances between. It seems like some of the other dance Moms I spoke with throughout the day were there for a long time, and there was one or two that were done right around lunch time. I did not however hear any grumbling from anyone.

Scoring

Here is where I usually do all that math, but for this feis, I felt so distracted with everything around our recent status change, I did not catch as many details as I would have liked. If I had to summarize, the parking, limited camping and the crowdedness, were the negatives, but it was not a bad feiseanna. If I had to give it a score, for you number crunchers out there, I would say a solid 7.

What Say You?

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