Posts Categorized: Michigan Feis

Back to Amanda’s Bequest

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Accommodations, Michigan (Muskegon) Feis, People & Places.

This is a follow up to a post I wrote last year, and some of the references may make more sense if you read that first. This is a bit more ‘story-tellish’ than most of my posts, and the story does not do it justice :)

ab1So a year after our discovery of a hidden gem in Montague, MI we returned to the Muskegon area for the 2014 Michigan Feis. It started with a Facebook message to Valerie, the proprietor, saying we were on the way. She let us know that she had other guests this year and that breakfast would be at 930. I replied that we would need to leave about 8 to get to the feis on time, and she need not worry about us, but shortly after, received a response saying we would not be leaving without breakfast, and that we could eat at 730. read more

Michigan (Muskegon) Feis 2014 Review, Champs

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Feis Reviews, Michigan (Muskegon) Feis, Michigan Feis.

The 2014 Michigan Feis was held on September 13, 2014 at Muskegon Central Catholic High School in Muskegon, MI. This is the 4th time the WTF famila has attended this feis, and honestly, it is one of our faves. Jeanette did an awesome job for the over all feis review so I will just be adding notes for some things she did not cover from a champs perspective or other items. I do suggest reading Jeanette’s review along with this one for the big picture.

One thing I do not think she mentioned is that each dancer gets a free ticket into the Michigan Irish Music Festival which is a savings of $15 to $20 if you are going to it, which I highly suggest. read more

Michigan (Muskegon) Feis 2014 Review, Grades

Posted by Jeannette & filed under Feis Reviews, Michigan (Muskegon) Feis, Michigan Feis.

The 2014 Michigan Feis was held on September 13, 2014 at Muskegon Central Catholic High School in Muskegon, MI. This is the 2nd time we have attended this feis, and we have had a very pleasant experience here both times. This review is mainly aimed at the Grades experience at this feis.

Venue

The feis was held at Muskegon Central Catholic High School.

Parking was free, plentiful & close – which was a nice change from many other feiseanna we have attended recently!

Because this feis is associated with the Michigan Irish Music Festival, there was an admission fee for adults at the door (I believe it was $8/person), but dancers were admitted free. There was a bit of a bottleneck getting into the school because people were paying the admission fee, but those who checked in the night before at the feis hotel & got their admission wristbands paid for then were able to walk right in. We had not prepaid, but still waited less than 5 minutes to get in, which is quick compared to other feiseanna we’ve been to with a similar setup. read more

Great Lakes Feis 2014, Grades Review

Posted by Alice In Feiseanna & filed under Feis Reviews, Great Lakes Feis, Michigan Feis.

image001The 12th Annual Great Lakes Feis was held August 17th, 2014 at the Lansing Center in Lansing, MI.

This was our first trip to the Great Lakes Feis and we really enjoyed it.

We did the Feis as a double Feis with Rose City. I was saddened to hear this feis was moving dates in 2015 to the last weekend in July. Several of our friends from our home studio wanted to try the double feis in August like we did. Not sure how July will work for our family.

I am adding the grade viewpoint to compliment the PC/OC review from WTF himself. read more

Great Lakes Feis 2014, PC/OC Review

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Feis Reviews, Great Lakes Feis, Michigan Feis.

image001The 12th Annual Great Lakes Feis was held August 17th, 2014 at the Lansing Center in Lansing, MI.

We have attended the Great Lakes Feis numerous times and we really like it. We have been going longer than I have been writing reviews, here are the reviews and additional posts I did write.

I was saddened to hear this feis was moving dates in 2015 to the last weekend in July, which is the same weekend as our local Celtic Festival where our school volunteers and dances, so if you go next year, don’t look for me, afraid I won’t be there. read more

Detroit Feis 2014, Grades Review

Posted by Mam rince na hÉireann & filed under Detroit International Feis, Feis Reviews, Michigan Feis.

The 2014 Detroit International Feis was held on Saturday, June 7th at the Ultimate Soccer Arena in Pontiac, Michigan

Venue

Huge, open space to hold a Feis. There were 4 stages set aside for the grades and there was ample spacing between each so that music didn’t bleed over and confuse the dancers. There was plenty of space set aside for camping and bleacher seating was always available when sought out. My only suggestion would be to set up a few practice areas with a flat/dance friendly surface. It was difficult for my dancer to warm up and run through her dances on the turf areas and the rolled out temporary surfaces that covered the turf areas. read more

Detroit International Feis 2014, PC/OC Review

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Detroit International Feis, Feis Reviews, Michigan Feis.

b7516be3d6a350f0bb91a148aef24a62The Detroit International Feis was held on June 7th, 2014 at the Ultimate Soccer Arena, in Pontiac, Michigan. I wrote a review for this feis last year, and with the exception of the date and one or two other items, I could pretty much copy and paste that here. I suggest reading that review as I am going to just annotate the differences here. It is good to see how things change.

Venue

Still love it. Probably one of my favorites. LOTS of room to literally run around if you want.

Stages & Seating

Stage setup was exactly like last year but this year since we were on one of the PC/OC stages I was able to figure out the stage size, which was 32 x 32. This feis, if I am not mistaken, has the biggest stages of any feis I have attended. Even the grades level stages are big at 24 x 32. read more

Amanda’s Bequest B&B

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Accommodations, Michigan (Muskegon) Feis.

And now, there is a sequel visit… read about it here.

Up until now, I have not found any feis accommodations worth blogging about, I mean hotels are hotels right? Some are nicer than others, but generally, as long as they are clean, they are really all the same. But when we waited to long to make a hotel reservation, in Muskegon, the weekend of the Irish Music Festival and feis, I just knew we were going to end up in a hotel that was on the less acceptable end of  ‘really all the same.’  I have to say though, we stayed somewhere this weekend that we all liked so much, I needed to blog about it. read more

Michigan (Muskegon) Feis 2013

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Feis Reviews, Michigan (Muskegon) Feis, Michigan Feis.

The Michigan Feis was held on September 14th, 2013 at the Muskegon Catholic Central High School in Muskegon, Michigan.

This is the second review for this feis. To see last years review, look here.

Venue – This is the third time we have done a feis at Muskegon Catholic and unlike some of the other feiseanna located in schools, we like this feis.

There were 4 stages in different areas of the school, 2 in one gym, 1 in the auditorium on the schools auditorium stage, and the PC/OC stage in another gym at the far end of the school. If by chance you had dancers on stages 3 or 4 and one of the other stages, especially stage 1 (OC/PC) you probably did not enjoy the layout as much, since dances moved quickly and it was a few minute walk between the stages. read more

Great Lakes Feis 2013

Posted by What The Feis & filed under Feis Reviews, Great Lakes Feis, Michigan Feis.

image001The 11th Annual Great Lakes Feis was held on August 18th, 2013 at the Lansing Convention Center in Lansing, Michigan.

This is the third, fourth, ah who knows, time I have done the Great Lakes Feis. You can see last years review here but that was before I had scoring for each section of the feis, and just had an overall score.

Venue – The venue is great. The feis uses what I assume to be the biggest hall in the center and there is plenty of room.

There were six stages with numbers 1 and 2 at one end of the hall for OC and PC, and 3 – 6 more towards the other end for the other level dancers. The stages were huge compared to many feiseanna I have attended. The smallest I saw, if my visual measuring system is even close to accurate, was about 24′ x 28′, and the stage we were on was closer to 32′ x 32′. There was also good separation between the stages, on the order of tens of feet, if that makes sense, not a few feet or attached like other recent feiseanna. read more