Big Apple Feis 2015 PC/OC Review/1 Comment/in , , /by

The Big Apple Feis was held on Sunday, March 22, 2015 at the Marriott Marquis on Times Square in New York City.

NOTE: The images are screenshots from the Voy Boards that were sent in by the reviewer. She submitted them to let us know her opinion was not uncommon. (Click each for a larger version)

I am not sure where to even begin with this feis. We attended this last year and thought we would give it another try since everyone can have an off day. This year was worse than last year, and I thought last year was bad. This feis has so much potential with a great area. Who wouldn’t want to go to Times Square and dance? A great time could be had by all, but unfortunately that is where this feis ends.

Prep/ Communication

The syllabus comes out very late (and has for many years). It was hard to plan this year since they moved to a different venue and changed the date. This made it difficult to plan for out of area families. The website looks like an 8 year old put it together. In fact, the website is not viewable on most iPhones and iPads. While having twitter was a great way to communicate, please provide correct information. One tweet would say all champs are on floor 9, but the schedule had champs on floor 8. The schedule changed with each bright sunrise (albeit minor), but no revisions were labeled, so it made it difficult to know which schedule you were working from.

Rating: 3

Volunteers

This is a hard section to write. I know we are all dependent on our volunteers to help with any feis. While the intent was clearly present, the feis lacked execution in this category. There was far too few to go around, and the few that were asked question didn’t know any answers. There was a 25+ person  backup to pick up number cards in the morning with only one volunteer. There were lines throughout the day to pick up awards. Stages were missing monitors and judges had to monitor and judge at the same time. Maybe they could coordinate with some local schools to increase the volunteer pool in the future?

Rating: 2

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Venue

Times Square!! Does it get any better than that? The hotel was large and beautiful. Unfortunately, the feis was spread over 3 floors and there was no signage at all to tell people where to go. Multiple elevators and escalators will take you to where you need to be, but that is where it ends. The schedule listed room names that were nonexistent. There was no room rate, so if you had a spare $400/ night, you were lucky enough to stay there. While not the feis’s fault, multiple times during the day bathrooms were without toilet paper and paper towels. I’m just waiting for the illnesses to start later this week. Extremely cramped small hotel rooms. Extremely cramped. While there was a lack of space in the rooms, plenty of dancers found places outside in the halls to practice.

Venue: 7

Stages

Oh my! While times on the schedule are certainly not guaranteed, most of the stages ran somewhere between 1 ½ to 3 hours behind. I knew we were in trouble when the feis was supposed to start at 8 and it did not begin until 9. Stages that were lucky enough to have a monitor moved faster than others. The stages looked good, built up from carpeted hotel floors, and sounded good. I did not see many falls, and my dancers said they were not slippery, so kudos there.

Rating:5

Musicians

Unfortunately for me, my daughter was on Stage 3. Stage 3 had a musician for grades, until he got up and left. Yes, left for good right as the champs were starting. Maybe he had an emergency, I don’t know. But the next few hours were spent begging parents to hand over their iPhones if they had any music on it. Many thanks to all the parents who did, because my daughter would never have been able to dance if they didn’t. Musicians on the other stages sounded good and as far as I know only the one musician left. Apparently this happened in previous years as well.

Rating:2

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Food

Provided by the hotel, but certainly lots of choices. I always forget how much a sandwich is in NYC. I better take on a second job…

Rating: 6

Vendors

The usual vendors, shirts, shoes headbands. Nothing special and only a few. I did notice an Irish tourism booth though. I kept thinking I would rather be in Ireland than the feis. But I digress….

Rating: 7

Awards

This is the most redeeming aspect of this feis. The coveted crystal apples! This feis produces beautiful awards. They come in all sizes from gold small ones for grades to very large crystal ones for opne champs. Beautiful, lovely awards! I just wish they didn’t run out of them….

Rating: 8 (would have been a 10 if they didn’t run out)

Overall

Like I said in the beginning, this feis has great potential given the area and the hotel. More volunteers, signage and a room rate would make this feis very special. Please order more crystal apples… we love them! Sadly, I‘m not sure we want to go back until the kinks are worked out.

Rating:4

What did youse guyz tink?  😉

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Southern Tier Feis 2014, Grades Level Review/1 Comment/in , , /by

Be sure to see the Local Attractions addon by Mom O’Treble at the very bottom of this review below the poll.

This review coming from a “grades” perspective. This is the second time that we attended this feis. The Southern Tier Feis is held in Binghamton, NY on the campus of Broome County Community College. It was a smaller feis with a little less than 500 entrants. They used Feisworx, which I love for speed of results at the venue and personal results.

Venue

The Feis was held in an ice hockey arena, without the ice of course! Seating was in the stands with all of the stages facing the seats, which provided for good viewing as a spectator and the hockey glass was clean for ease of viewing. There was some true camping on one end of the floor but really no need to bring a whole camp set-up as there was ample seating in the seats. Probably a good secret and need to get there early – but if deciding to camp, I would choose the penalty boxes. There was not spectator seating at the stages, only chairs were for the dancers; this eliminated traffic completely as people just moved in out as their dancer danced. Parking was free and ample- maybe a little walk if you arrived late.

There were 5 stages total- there were 3 grades stages, 1 stage for PC and 1 stage for OC. The grades stages seemed small though dancing was 2 at a time. I am sure they were regulation size but probably the minimum size. Saw a few falls on the champ stage. Did not seeing any stage maintenance but I could have missed it throughout the day. They were plywood but the PC stage seemed to have either a marley or shower pan liner covering.

They had an unsupervised dress rack and people also hung the dresses around the railings in the seating area.

Tight area for champ awards presentation- right at the front door. This was really the only bottle neck area when awards were going on also because it was near the food service. Venue was clean, except bathrooms were a little trashed at the end of the day.

Score: 9/10

Judges

Daughter dance 5 dances and had 4 different judges. Received comments from half of the judges. Judges given a half hour lunch break and dancing started timely after the break. Nice of one judge to stop the dancing after some issue and permitted the two-some to go to the end of the line and have a do-over, that was in a PW dance.

Score: 10/10

Musicians

There was one musician per stage and DD good here it well. Stages were placed well apart and did not notice sound bleeding over from other stages.

Score: 10/10

Food

This is where things really fell down in satisfaction. My advice- bring your own and make trips to the car or go to one of the fast food restaurants close by and bring it back. The food service was thru a concession stand area at the time we were getting only fries at the lunch break, we waited almost 25 minutes with only about 10 people in front of us (I would not have waited but DD had a bit of an injury and needed something to cheer her up!). They had 2 people working and one had left the stand to get supplies, which left 1 person to take orders, make the food on the grill and run the register. Felt bad for the man but come on- plan accordingly and they run the food service for a living. Fry oil was dirty as the fries came out with black flecks on them- thought it was pepper but when ask, said “oh that is just from the oil”. Prices were not bad and selections were good you could make it through the line and get waited on.

Score: 0/10

Vendors

I only noticed 2 vendors but vendors well stocked with the necessities, Head for the World and Rutherford shoes.

Score: 8/10

Results

It was a Feisworx feis- what can I say except results were fast! Soon after posting at the venue, results were on Feisworx site shortly after posting at the venue. Results were computer print and with competitor name. They were posted on the glass of the rink in a corner were traffic flow did not seem to be a problem, but when scores go up quickly, you don’t have people just hanging around waiting causing crowd problems.

Grade level awards were nice. Good trophies for 1st-3rd, I think they were given to at least AB, Nov and PW (not sure about beginners), medals for the lower placements. The distribution of awards was thru a computer and were efficiently handed out.

Score: 10/10

Feis Flow

The overall flow of the day was good. They stage schedule indicated start times and they were spot on. Lunch was kept to ½ hour and dancing started promptly after lunch. Grades stages were wrapping up around 2pm.

Score: 10/10

Scoring

I give the feis an overall score of 9/10. The food was the only sour point and maybe the committee will work with facility to improve that next year.

What Did You Think?

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Local Attractions

It seems that hotel choices are not anything to get excited about in this area. There is a Fairfield Inn and Comfort Inn very close. We stayed at the Comfort Inn which was an older building but decently maintained and you could not beat the proximity to the venue. Starbucks (which is always a must for me in the AM when at a feis to get me thru the day!) was right across the street- bonus. So this close proximity allowed for a little more sleeping in especially because the feis started at 9am. Easy travel in and out either on I-81 or from the Southern Tier Expressway.

Rockland County Feis 2014 PC/OC Review

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rocklandThe 41st Annual Rockland County Feis was held on July 20, 2014 at the German Masonic Park in Tappan, NY.

Venue

Outside, in an open field. Bring your tents and chairs because it can get hot and the premium real estate goes fast. There is parking all around the venue, with parking attendants to direct the drivers. Trying to lug your Zuca bag through the rocks in the parking lot brings its own challenges, but the dancer managed it well. Bring your money, there is a per person gate fee attached to this feis, of course, dancers do not need to pay. There are activities going on all day – singing, music, kids games, even a playground for the siblings of bored dancers.

Rating 9.

Food

Good, typical food with relatively good prices. Typical sandwiches in the afternoon and bagels in the morning. There was a large beer garden over by the music section. I did see many dads in that section. I wonder why?

Rating 9.

Vendors

Nothing special. All essential feis items were represented.

Rating 8.

Stages

Multiple grade stages across from three champ stages. I did not get out a measuring tape, but I would bet that at least one of the champ stages were not to regulation. They were awfully small. Many dancers were seen maneuvering corners and “going around” other dancers. Grade stages appeared to be the correct size.

Rating 5.

Musicians

Loud enough with good music. These musicians were smart, bringing their own tents to keep cool.

Rating 9.

Awards

So, so. Trophies for champs, no sashes and no podiums. A podium would have been nice so parents could see who the winners are. Remember, most of the dancers are shorter than the parents and it was crowded in the red and white small circus tent. Volunteers tried to call out the names of winners to the background noise of passing trains, making it very difficult to hear. I found myself asking “Who?” many times. Some of the higher level champs had perpetual trophies and they looked very nice. Grade trophies and medals were nice.

Rating 6.

Flow

The stages appeared to go off as scheduled. There was a nice speaker system that had a gentleman announcing the progress on stages and times of awards. Award times were posted on Twitter – though sometimes as they were starting “Results for 215 – now”… not very helpful when trying to get a dress back on and put down your beer cup from the garden.

Rating 8.

Overall – 8

What Say You?

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Governor Thomas Dongan Feis 2014 PC/OC Review

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medalThe 26th Annual Governor Thomas Dongan Feis was held on Saturday July 19, 2014 at the Empire State Plaza in Albany, NY.

Venue

After several years of attending this feis, I still have no idea why I can’t find the actual venue. Everyone says to drive to the “big egg”. I can see the big egg, but it always takes me 15 minutes to figure out how to park near the big egg. This year was a little better, with only 10 minutes of circling the venue and its three surrounding blocks before I paid my $5 to park. Bring cash with you upstairs, because each adult is charged an additional gate fee. Grade stages are in the main room, with champ stages in two separate rooms.

Rating 8.

Food

The rooms are closely guarded with volunteers who will not let in ANY outside food. If you want something to drink, you must buy it there and eat it outside. One volunteer actually tried to stop my child from walking in with her water bottle. The food is OK, long lines around lunch time.

Rating 8.

Vendors

The typical ones, shoes, socks and tee shirts. All of the essential feis items were represented.

Rating 8.

Stages

I am always amazed when this feis starts. There are four grades stages, all running concurrently. All stages start at once because they share the same musician. The stages are on a convention floor, only the dancers are allowed in the stage area. Stage volunteers do a great job lining dancers up to be ready. There are plenty of seats around the stages (higher up) for all of the parents to view. Stages 5 and 6 are in separate rooms, one with a raised stage, the other flat. Both rooms had adequate seating for on lookers.

Rating 9.

Musicians

One musician for 4 grade stages. The reels start and they don’t stop until all of the stages are complete. It always amazes me that they seem to keep to their published schedule. The Champ stages basically ran to time when we were there as well. Great job!

Rating 9.

Awards

Uh, not much to say here. Champ awards included sashes and tiny ceramic vases with near dead tiny flowers. Medal rounds included clear plastic “medals”. The grades had the same plastic “medals” and first place trophies as well. With all of the money collected at the gate, I would think better awards may be a possibility, but what do I know.

Rating 5.

Flow

Good, kept to schedule. Awards came out relatively quickly. Parents were updated on Twitter with times of awards and pictures. Over all good.

Rating 9

Overall score: 8

What did you think?

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UICANY Feis 2014, PC/OC Review

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UICA LogoThe United Irish Counties Association of New York Inc. 76th Feis was held on June 8th, 2014 at Saunders Trades High School in Yonkers, NY.

Venue

The venue is a typical Mid-Atlantic high school with a twist. Small hallways, crowded stairwells, but it was a trade school, so we were able to admire the woodworking, auto mechanic and cosmetology information on the walls. There were about 75 parking spaces in the front of the school and quite the maze trying to figure out how to get to the two parking lots in the back of the school. Many locals at this feis, so they seemed to find the parking easily.  The auditorium was spacious with plenty of room to spread out. Early in the day, one of the volunteers locked one of the exit doors (thank goodness there wasn’t a fire!) which created an issue getting in from one side of the auditorium to the other (no path – had to climb over everyone or walk directly behind the judges). This is a very “old” feis, run by lovely elderly Irish enthusiasts. While these volunteers were always pleasant, a common answer to my questions were “I’m not sure”. Where are the awards? – I’m not sure. Where are the bathrooms? – I’m not sure. A friend had a daughter on the grades stages in the basement. She said that the temperature was “sweltering”. The auditorium was a pleasant temperature.

Overall grade: 7

Food

I am not sure – too crowded to get to it.

Judges

There were three of them 🙂

Musicians

One for champ stages, daughters said they had no issue hearing the music

Vendors

The typical vendors, shoes, headbands, socks, sock glue. I didn’t see anything special.

Results

The grades trophies appeared to be large, from the dancers carrying them around, but that is the highpoint. The awards for champs were in a small dark classroom in the basement. Once your time was posted, we were instructed to stand in the hall (not allowed in the room) until the scheduled time. This of course caused a big crowd in the hall near the vendors. Once allowed in, we crammed all dancers, parents and on lookers into the tiniest room while awards were called. No medal rounds for PC, only OC. No sashes, no podium and only one trophy for the 1st place winner. All other placers did receive a nice plaque though. Next, was a large picture taking session with many of the wonderful elderly volunteers who were very excited to take pictures with all of the dancers.

Overall rating: 5

Feis Flow

If you didn’t read the syllabus, you would be unaware that all adults would be charges $10 admission. This seemed to shock some people and the line to get in was quite long. The feis tried something new this year – mailing competitor cards ahead of time. It would have been helpful to tell people ahead of time, since the replacement line was long and only manned by two of the lovely elderly enthusiasts. By the third competition of the day, the feis was already 1 ¼ hours behind schedule. We did not stick around to see if competitions were moved or if they picked up in some way. The schedule for the feis did not come out until Friday night, late, after a social media outpouring from concerned parents – Facebook and Voy Boards. Apparently, this is unusual for this feis. Past years the feis posted the schedule early on Thursday.

Overall Rating: 4

Overall feis rating: 5.5

And you thought…?

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Rochester Feis Review

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The 2013 Rochester Feis was held on July 13th, 2013 at the Main Street Armory in Rochester, NY. I did not attend this feis, but a personal friend and a long time friend of WTF did, and she offered to share the info with us.

So, without further ado, if you want to know more about the Rochester Feis, please see *the feis review on Confessions of a Feis Mom’s Blog.

Look for more reviews from MaryMac962 to appear linked here. I can’t make it to all the feiseanna 😉

If you would like to help review feiseanna in your area, please let me know!

*NOTE: It’s not a good idea to copy and paste another sites content so we stay on Google’s good side, which is why we are doing this link thing 🙂

Feis At The Falls Review

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The Feis At The Falls was held on August 11th, 2012 at The Conference Center Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls, NY.  Ever thought about going and didn’t know what to expect? Well here ya go…

Venue – The venue was nice and had two areas with six stages set up for ‘pre-champs’ in one, and two stages in the other area for Champs. Admittedly, since my daughter is in the Open/Prizewinner level, I don’t venture into champ land much, so I am talking about the area I was in. The stages were a nice size, had ample seating and good room between. The camping seemed plentiful but there were, as always, your ‘camping squatters’ who set up in the viewing seats and spread out their stuff. Can you tell that is a pet peeve? Parking was plentiful but pricey.

Judges – Three different judges rotated through my daughters 5 dances, so rotation was good. Two thumbs up.

Music – As far as I could tell, there was a musician at each stage and the musician at our stage took very short breaks, and only a few of them, so music was continuous. Great job on the musicians.

Lesson Learned: If you are a musician, don’t keep your side table to close to the stage because there is a good chance one of the dancers will launch it into the air with a kick while performing, sending your coffee, cell phone, etc… into the crowd. I know, it happened… I laughed.

Food – Typical convention center food at typical convention center prices. There is a TGI Fridays across the street, as well as a Starbucks, and some hotels with their own restaurants, so there were options.

Vendors – Standard vendors, the feis tshirt guy, Rutherford shoes, some wigs, clips, crowns and hair accessories, jewelry, etc… There was some Guinness shirts and Irish swag, but it was limited. There was also a window cling guy who had some fun dance designs, but I decided not to buy until he sells a ‘tag-a-long cause he had to brother’ cling to go with the dance Mom and Dad and dancer clings. If you are interested, you can view the vendor list.

I was also impressed by the dress area. Usually it is a disorganized mess, but these guys had it together. Dress sellers had to register their dresses, pay a small fee, and then pass the info and dress on to the ‘dress shop staff.’ The staff arranged the dresses by ages for easy browsing. Well done there too.

Results – well done. I would say the results were out in under 15 minutes for most dances (that I saw) but there was the occasional longer wait. They appeared to have a great system, higher tech than most, and the folks giving out the awards pulled up results on computer monitors. Well run. Can I make a suggestion guys? Ever consider tweeting the results? Just a thought 😉

Feis Flow – I thought this feis was very well run. They provided lunches for the judges at the stage tables so there was no ‘lunch break’ per se. It was so smooth that our last dance, the second to last one on our stage, was done before 2 p.m. That’s kind of unheard of in my experience. Very well done! (a local dance Mom did report that that was not common and it was the first time she had seen it at this feis too).

And the WTF Rating – What can I say, overall I was very impressed and give this feis a 9.0.

Feis At The Falls – The Tourism Review

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We got to Niagara Falls on Friday night and stayed through Monday morning, so I figured I would add this bonus ‘tourism review.’

Niagara Falls American SideWhat can I say, if you go to this feis, you are literally a short walk away from an impressive natural attraction. We saw the falls every day during our walks and drove down one night to see the falls lit up. If you have never been, its one of those ‘you gotta see it’ places.

Niagara Falls Canadian SideWe stayed on the Canadian side, which actually has more attractions than the American side. You can visit places like Hard Rock (actually on both sides), Planet Hollywood, Margaritaville (which has Alexander Keith’s on tap, a fabulous beer I first had in Halifax where it is brewed), Ripleys Believe It Or Not, and lots of wax museums. If you have ever been to Myrtle Beach, or Gatlinburg, it’s kinda like that, with a Canadian accent. I would consider it a ‘family tourist area’ but tattoo parlors and head shops were evident on the main street. We stayed up on Lundy’s Lane, a few miles from the main area and there were some more mature shops in plain view, if you know what I mean.

Falls ManorProbably one of the most ethnically diverse areas we have visited, there were lots of food choices, 75% of which appeared to be pizza places. We didn’t have a bad meal, and there was lots of good beer. We had a great breakfast up on Lundy’s Lane at Falls Manor Dining Lounge, who claimed to have the best breakfast in town. Considering the crowd and number of locals, and the food, I would have to agree. We also found a great local bar called Chip N Charlies up on Lundy’s Lane that had great wings, pizza, fish and chips and burgers, and was CONSIDERABLY less expensive than all the other meals we had while in the area (including breakfast at Falls Manor and we had beer with our meal at CnC). Worth the drive up the lane.

Our hotel was less expensive but older and would not suit all tastes. There were lots of other options though.

Parking was everywhere, but was between $5 and $15 a day. The good thing is that once parked, you can walk everywhere.

All in all, if you go to the feis and have not been to this area before, I would recommend staying another day or two to have a little fun in there. If you can, get a hotel with a kitchenette to save on eating-out costs because the whole area is pricey, but as the kids say, YOLO.