Bluegrass Feis PC/OC Levels Review 2104

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bgFeisThe Bluegrass Feis was held at the Lexington Convention Center on Sunday, May 11th, 2014. This is the second time we have done this feis and you can see my previous review here.

As has become my habit of late, this review focuses on the PC/OC levels. If you have comments on the grades levels, please add them at the bottom of the review or contact me and I can add them for you.

Venue

Second time at this venue, and after having read last years review, apparently I am not as big a fan this year.

Stages & Seating

As it was last year the venue had 7 stages, with 1 – 6 actually being 3 big stages divided down the middle by tape, making two roughly 16 x 24 foot stages that were literally connected. This made for cramped standing for bigger comps and cramped dancing for everyone except the more beginner dancers.

Stages 1 – 6 were for grades, and stage 7 was for PC/OC. Stage 7 was about 24 x 32 but was not divided as the others were. Later in the day, stage 5/6 became just stage 6 and had some PC/OC comps on it. Stage 7 did have some maintenance issues shortly after we got there and dancing came to a halt while they fixed what I was told was a loose screw.

Seating wasn’t bad, but the people who were so courteous the prior day in Cincinnati decided to leave it in Cincinnati. You can see there were a few complaints (here and here) and seating due to these people was not adequate.

Camping & Access

Camping was very cramped, a lot worse than I remember last year. I wonder if the number of competitors was increased. Very tight camping area, little room to move and very crowded walkways made the whole thing seem claustrophobic. There were areas on the far end of the venue that could have been used better. I think I made the same observation last year.

Awards & Results Areas

Grade level awards were posted at one end of the venue on a large wall, with awards fairly close.

Champ level dancers had their podium stuck in between stages 7 and 5/6. No seating and lots of noise from the stages on both sides.

Parking

Free and plentiful, but could involve some walking.

Venue Score: 7.5

Judges

Judges seemed very attentive again today and rated TGC about the same as the previous day (1 judge was the same both days). So maybe it is TGCs skills evening out 🙂 I also thought the judges did an excellent job of keeping things moving.

Judge Score: 10

Music

I really cant speak to the music for the entire venue, and to be honest, since we stayed on stage 7, I am not even sure if the merged stages (1 – 6) had there own musicians (6 different) or each merge shared 1 (3 different). Can somebody help me out with that one?  The musician on 7 seemed fine and I heard no complaints.

Musician Score: 8.5

Food

Only saw a Italian Ice/gelato stand inside the venue, but a short walk in the same building brought you to a food court with a variety of options, all reasonably priced. There were also options close to the venue.

Food Score: 8.5

Vendors

Feis vendors were pretty much a repeat of who was in Cincinnati at Queen City. Here is the list, but alas, still no Irish M&Ms.  🙁

Vendor Score: 7.5

Results

Results for champs, as mentioned above was jammed in between two stages. No seats and music competing with the announcer from both sides. It took about an hour and 15 minutes from the end of TGCs comp to announcements, so slightly worse than QC.

Results Score: 7

Feis Flow

From start to finish, both PC dances and got awards in about 2 hours. That part was good. I also noticed that by 130ish, it seemed like things in the entire venue were starting to wrap up and at least one stage was being torn down.

Feis Flow: 9

Scoring

Two part scoring with a Feis Score consisting of Judging, Music, Results and Flow, and then the overall consisting of everything.

Feis Score: 8.625

And the WTF Rating is 8.3… Not the highest for the weekend, but it had its high points. Good job Bluegrass!

Were You There, What Did YOU Think?

Polling software still on sebaticle. Would love to hear what you thought, so can you do it in the comments below? It can be anonymous  🙂  Thanks!

Lexington, KY Eats

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Haven’t posted a feistaurant review in a while, but stumbled across some worthy entries this past wekeend.

Italian Nachos

Italian Nachos

Old Chicago

I have never (if memory serves) reviewed a chain restaurant, but we liked this place so much, TGC wants to move to Kentucky.

Be sure to click the pictures to see a larger version. No filters on the pics, the food looked that good and tasted even better.

spaghettiPie

Spaghetti Pie

Old Chicago is a western chain that is slowly making its way east, and if you are lucky, you have one near you. If you have not tried it, go, or at the very least put this one on your todo list for next years Bluegrass Feis.

On top of an outrageous menu, they have a nice selection of beers and the service was excellent!

We started with the Italian Nachos, a pasta (yes, I said pasta) chip covered with cheeses, sausage, pepperocini, and served with marinara, “Dio mio!… that is Italian for OMG. Fried and carbs, can it get any better?

chicagoFire

Chicago Fire Calzone

TGC had a hard time selecting from the vast menu but decided carbo loading was the way to go. She went with the Spaghetti Pie, a wedge shaped piece of spaghetti noodles with Alfredo sauce set atop marinara.

I went with a calzone called Chicago Fire, a spicy blend of meats and veggied in a huge dough case, served with ranch. Anyone of you who knows me is going to find this hard to believe, but it was too much, and on top of the nachos, um, and beer, I couldn’t finish it.

And don’t let the ‘Italian’ list fool you, we went traditional, but they also have wings, salads, and specialty pizzas like THAI PIE with chicken and teriyaki. Oh, and did I mention they have a nice beer selection? 😉

Highly recommended.

Spaulding’s Bakery

Our own Mellie Wilkes recommended Spaulding’s to me when she heard we were headed to Lexington. Known for their donuts, she told me to get there early on Sunday if I wanted a chance to get some.

Well, considering the meal the night before (see above), and the fact we did not have to rush to the feis first thing Sunday, we took a pass on Spauldings. So why is it listed you ask?

As we drove to the feis, we took side streets through some of the older neighborhoods. In one area, I could see a line of people out the door, and considering the neighborhood, I literally thought it might be a soup kitchen. I was surprised to find it was Spauldings, and Mellie was right, there was a line out the door and around the building.

So sorry Mellie, maybe next time, but if you guys have the chance in the meantime, sounds like it is worth a visit.

Bluegrass Feis

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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.

What did you think?

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