Gem City Feis 2014 PC/OC Review/1 Comment/in , , /by

gcfThe Gem City Feis was held on October 11th, 2014 at the Dayton Airport Expo Center in Vandalia, OH (basically attache to the Dayton International Airport, 15 minutes north of Dayton proper).

This is the third review I have done for Gem City, but I have been to the feis numerous times. If you would like to review the previous reviews, see this page.

Venue

As I have said in the past, the Expo Center is a great venue for a feis. Lots of space, nice size stages, nice separation between the stages, etc… My big peeve with this venue is the assigned camping area. If I was to refer to last years review, I said:

…last year I also said “probably could have taped off a bigger area for camping then they actually did, since the camping filled up and became difficult to navigate in and out of, but the annoyance was minor” and maybe I was a little too subtle. There is a ton of open area that could have been used for camping, but they taped off the same inadequate area this year and people were openly irritated. TAPE OFF A BIGGER CAMPING AREA IN 2014 PLEASE!

Well that went over well… not. Same area as the past few years, too small, too cramped, too frustrating. I won’t ask for a bigger area for 2015 since past attempts have gone SO well, but if someone from the committee reads this, I actually have an idea on how to expand the area.

Next peeve for this year was the temperature. The PC/OC end of the venue was very warm, while the opposite end was almost chilly because they had opened two of the large garage doors on that end of the building.

Lastly, stages. Stage size was great with PC/OC stages being 32 x 32 or bigger, but stage condition was horrible. I saw numerous falls, one resulting in the dancer being carried off the stage and transported by wheel chair a little later. The feis committee mopped at lunch, and occasionally between comps, but it did not seem to help much. Stage 2 actually stopped comps and moved one of the floor panels after numerous dancers fell on it, including the dancer in the wheel chair.

Judges

Typical for Champs, three judges, all attentive and two of the them on our stage were not familiar to me, which was a nice change. The other thing I realized which has not been the norm for TGCs results, was that all three judges scored her evenly. Typically (it seems), TGC will do great with two judges and meh with the third. I always wonder how she can score so differently, but this time that was not in question. All the judges saw the same dance 😉

Music

I did not encounter any issues here. When the stage musician was playing, the other stages music was not a distraction. I did hear that the musician on Stage 2 was erratic with her tempos, but I did not encounter that, and TGC had no problems with the music.

Vendors

Vendors seemed lighter than years past. Balinvilla was there (sans George, but he is doing well according to Betsy), the wig ladies, the feis t-shirt guys, and one other t-shirt guy. No real Irish nick-nacks, no Irish M&Ms… TGC was sad.

Food

Convention Center food, pretzels, pizza, salad and sandwiches. They did have a nice fruit and cheese plate which I thought a nice option. Drinks were also available, coffee, water, soda and beer. I thought prices were high however, $2.50 for a bottle of water and over $5 for a pretzel and soda. The fruit and cheese will set you back $9. My advice, plan ahead. There are options fairly close if you are familiar with the area and easy to find if you are not, so brown bag it 😉

Results/Awards

Gem City does a nice job with the PC/OC results and have an area set off in one corner to do the presentations. The presenter gives plenty of time for pics and makes an extra effort to make sure everyone is done taking pics before she had the dancers bow.

The awards are gems, and all placers get one. TGC got a Prizewinner gem last year and scored a placement gem this year and I think the PC/OC gems are bigger. A little sad that there were no sashes because trying to wear your gem could cause significant bodily harm due to their size.

If there were any negatives about the awards (other than no sashes) it would be the area proximity to Stage 1 made it hard to hear the award announcements when Stage 1 was going at it. Secondly, they had a bunch of lovely pumpkins lined up right in front of the podium and although it looked nice, I think it made it hard for the winners to get up on the podium. Maybe next year, add some space between the pumpkins and the podium.

It took about an hour for results to come out after TGCs comp was done dancing, which is a bit better than average.

Feis Flow

Feis Flow when things were going was not bad, and according to the stage estimator Mrs. WTF used, TGC was right on schedule. The ‘issue’ was the Treble Reels.

Scheduled to start during lunch, they were repeatedly delayed, and at one point they announced that it would be “AT LEAST 20 more minutes” before they started. If I had to guess, lunch on stage 2 started at 12ish and the Treble Reels didn’t go till closer to 130. If anyone has more exact info, please let me know.

Other than that, from my perspective, flow was pretty good.

Scoring

Positives and negatives… venue was great, stages, not so much, awards were nice, flow had its hiccups, vendors were limited, food was pricey. I would place this around 6 or 7, your mileage may vary.

What did you think?

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Gem City Feis 2013

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gcLogoThe Gem City Feis was held on October 12th, 2013 at the Dayton Airport Expo Center in Vandalia, OH.

This is my second year reviewing this feis although we have been here a few times. You can see the last review here.

Venue – As I said last year, the Expo Center is a great venue for a feis. People at the feis even commented that it was their favorite venue. However, last year I also said “probably could have taped off a bigger area for camping then they actually did, since the camping filled up and became difficult to navigate in and out of, but the annoyance was minor” and maybe I was a little too subtle. There is a ton of open area that could have been used for camping, but they taped off the same inadequate area this year and people were openly irritated. TAPE OFF A BIGGER CAMPING AREA IN 2014 PLEASE!

There, got that off my chest. Other than that, it was great!

There were 5 stages again this year and stages 1 & 2 (the OC/PC stages) were huge, 32 x 32 as far as I could tell. The remaining stages were all 24 x 24 and were bigger than the average stage I see at other feiseanna. Each stage had lots of chairs for the audience.

I saw a few slips but did see the staff mopping the stages (at least the one that we were on) at lunch, and the monitors were very good at cleaning up any foreign objects that happened to fall off dancers while they danced.

Parking, as last year, was plentiful but if you didn’t get there early, like at 8am, you were going to have to park out a ways. There is a drop zone available though.

Venue Score: 7.5 (down a little from last year due to camping situation)

Judges – The girl child had three dances and was judged by two different judges. Generally I would say that was not great, but on our stage they rotated a few times during the morning comps and it just so happened that the same judge rotated back to judge her again in the afternoon. One of the Moms told me that on her stage, her dancer had the same judge for 4 dances. I think that is unacceptable and could give unfair advantage (or disadvantage) to the dancers.

Judge Score: 5

Music – All stages had their own music and were spaced well enough so as not to bleed over.

On a side note, the nice lady at the concession stand told me she did not realize there was live music at these events. Oh, and that the music was very repetitive. We may not see her work the stand next year 😉

Musician Score: 9

Food – Same menu as last year, burgers, brats and dogs, pretzels, pizza, salad, sandwiches, drinks and some breakfast items. The food prices were good but the drink prices were (IMHO) very high. $4 or $5 sandwiches and the quality was ok, but a soda was $2.50 for a bottle. They had beer, but I did not see the price on that.

Food Score: 8.5

Vendors – Vendors were the standard list which you can see here. George the shoe guy, the wig ladies, the Zuca couple from Georgia, the ribbon lady, one Irish swag guy who sold sweatshirts, posters and a few other things, t-shirt vendor and a photographer.

The only noticeable change (to me) was that the feis t-shirts were not pre-printed like last year, and you could ‘customize’ them a bit, otherwise same-o same-o.

Vendor Score: 8.5

Results – Results were posted on the wall in about 15 minutes and that is excellent in my opinion. No apparent Twitter or Facebook posts, but I did not search very hard for them, so if any of you saw them, please let me know.

gemAwards were right next to the results and were divided by comps instead of by stages, not sure if that helped or not, but TGC never had to wait long for her awards.

I also like the gems that some of the dancers get for 1st place, nice touch.

The other thing I liked is that they had comments ready to be picked up within about 30 minutes of the dancers being finished. Not sure that was in every case, but it was in ours.

Results Score: 9.5

Feis Flow – Feis flow was just OK. They had 10 age comps on our stage and they all did the same dance before starting the next dance. I know that is how it usually goes, but with comps having sometimes over 20 dancers, it made for a long wait between dances. I think this wears on the dancers. I know it wears on the parents.

This venue is so large I think they could add a stage or two to help spread the comps out a little. I say that with the caveat that I do not know availability of judges, musicians etc… so this may not be an option, but it would be nice.

All that being said, we started around 11 and were done a little after 3ish with an hour lunch in there, so it was not horrible, but we got there early in case things went quick… you know how that goes, long day.

Feis Flow Score: 7

Scoring

The feis score consists of Judging, Music, Results and Flow and the overall includes everything.

Feis Score: 7.625

Overall Score (aka the WTF Rating): 7.85

What did you think?

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New friends from Pittsburgh…

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And speaking of the Gem City Feis, I met another nice family yesterday. I mentioned in another post that I find it very refreshing to see dancers who excel, but don’t get all ‘diva’ even though they are kicking butt, because I have seen quite a lot of that in the past. Met another such dancer and family.

First saw this dancer in Pittsburgh last week and got a chance to meet the Mom and Dad yesterday. Because of the uniqueness of the dancers name, I won’t mention it, but if they find this blog, I think they will know who they are.

So a big WTF shout out to the parents from Pitt. See you guys and ‘* the big meanie’ at Oireachtas. And ‘big meanie’, CONGRATS again on getting the 1st you needed to advance!

* Before anyone gets all, ‘you shouldn’t call the girl names’, I called the dancer a big meanie after she beat my darling daughter. I didn’t mean it, and the smile I got after I called her that showed me she knew I was kidding.

Gem City Feis Review

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The Gem City Feis was held on October 13th, 2012 at the Dayton Airport Expo Center in Vandalia, OH. What is it with these airport feises lately?

Venue – The Expo Center was great as a feis venue. Lots of room, plenty of space, plenty of area for camping. It was not ‘posh’, but the temperature was good and there was lots of room. They probably could have taped off a bigger area for camping then they actually did, since the camping filled up and became difficult to navigate in and out of, but the annoyance was minor.

There were five stages, well separated and all very good size. They had sufficient chairs for viewers but the campers were being their old inconsiderate selves… but I digress.

Parking was good, not all ‘close,’ but plentiful.

Venue Score: 8.5

Judges – Like last weekend, the girl child had four dances and was judged by three different judges, a good judging rotation.

Judge Score: 9

Music – All stages had their own musicians and there was good separation between the stages so there was no music bleed over. Our musician did not seem to take a pee break, so no complaints.

Musician Score: 9

Food – Burgers, grilled chicken, pretzels, pizza, salad, sandwiches, drinks and breakfast items. I thought the prices were a little high for drinks, and was a little surprised by the $5 burger, but it was huge, so I take that back and will say the prices were reasonable. Oh, and they had beer, only a couple brands, but they had it for sale.

Food Score: 8.5

Vendors – The shoe booth (yeah George was back), and feis t-shirts which were preprinted, not customized like in most feises I have been to. Wigs, as always, and another Irish tshirt guy, and other smaller booths. The Zuca guy was there too, a staple in Irish Dance (the Zucas, not the guy).You can see all the vendors at the the feis site under Layout and Concessions.

Vendor Score: 8

Results – Good work on the results, and they were out within about 15 – 30 minutes or so after each dance. No apparent Twitter or Facebook posts, which I would love to see from all feises, so not perfect, but pretty darn good.

Results Score: 9.5

Feis Flow – I thought the feis flow was good. I am becoming a fan of grouping age comp dances because it seems to help get through the dances quicker, but GC did not group. They went through all the ages in each dance and then moved to the next dance. That being said, we were still through all 4 dances around 2pm after starting after 10am.

Feis Flow Score: 7

And the WTF Rating – a WTF Rating is 8.5 which ties for 2nd highest feis review score from WTF. Good Job Gem City!.