Columbus Feis 2013

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The 33rd annual Columbus Feis was held on August 3rd, 2013 at the Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio.

Editors Note: This feis is run in conjunction with, and across the street from the Dublin Irish Fest, but alas, I did not make it to that this year.

Venue – This is the second time I have done the Columbus Feis at the high school, the first being a few years ago before I started posting feis reviews, and to be honest, its not one of my favorite venues.

There were 10 stages at the feis, split into 4 different areas of the high school. 4 stages in one gym, 4 in another gym, the PC stage in the cafeteria and the OC stage in the Performing Arts Center (aka the auditorium). The areas were wide-spread and could be a few minutes from each other if you happened to have dancers on several stages. Travel was complicated because of having to travel through crowded school hallways.

Stage size was OK, with the stages in the 2 gyms (numbered 1 – 8) being about 20 x 24. Actually, there were two large platforms, 20 x 48 in each gym, with each split, forming two stages, and having the dancers dance back to back. There was a few feet between the two large platforms where a musician sat, playing for all 4 stages. Although the stages were ok size, the whole setup seemed very cramped, especially since some of the comps were huge. The PC stage (#9) was in the cafeteria, and I think it was 24 x 24, but seemed kind of crammed into the end of the room. The OC stage was literally an auditorium stage, and was plenty big.

I only saw one fall, and I did not see any floor cleanup or mopping during the day, but I was not in a stage area during the lunch hour, so it may have occurred.

Chairs seemed adequate, with one gym area using the school bleachers. To be honest I was only in the other gym briefly, and it was crowded, and I did not notice the seating there. The PC stage probably needed more chairs because there was lots of standing viewers, but I don’t believe there was adequate room to put many more. The OC stage was fine seating wise.

Camping was in the cafeteria, in the student locker area, and in the hallways, with a little in the gyms on the sides of, and in, the bleachers.

Results and awards were in the hallway off the cafeteria where the student lockers were. It was cramped and hard to maneuver, and campers had pretty much blocked access from the sides so flow to/past the results had restricted flow.

Due to the Irish Fest, which is across the street from the high school, parking was painful. They had only one way in and out of the school parking lot and it was full by 845 when we arrived. I dropped the family off at the door and parked somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 mile away. There was no charge for parking however.

Vendors were in the hallway between areas, and even though the hallway was large, having vendors on both sides really cramped the flow.

The last note about the venue was the ‘climate’. It was really hot in the entire venue in the morning. I heard many complaints and did my fair share of perspiring. I would say by 11 they had it more under control, but the first few hours it was miserable.

Put all that together and I think….

Venue Score: 5  

Judges – The girl child danced 3 times and was judged by 3 different judges. Can’t ask for better that that.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Stages 9 and 10 each had their own musicians, but stages 1 x 4, and 5 x 8 only had one musician for each of the 4 stages. The lack of stage-worthy areas in the venue probably causes the need to have those stages share their musicians, but it caused lots of delays and I saw stages come to complete halts numerous times. Basically, all the stages in the entire gym would have to have all their age comps finish all their reels (for example), before all the stages could start on the next dance. You see where I am going here.

Musician Score: 4

Food – There were a few vendor tables that had easy to grab and eat food like bananas, grapes, bagels, donuts, drinks etc… all reasonably priced. When lunch hit, other than the snack tables, there was one hamburger/hot dog/sandwich vendor, and people waited because the food ran out quickly. It wasn’t terrible though, and the prices were reasonable.

Food Score: 7.5

Vendors –  2 shoe vendors, a jewelry table, the tshirt guy, the ribbon lady, and lots of hair stuff. Just a small showing really. There was an Irish Festival going across the street however, but I did not make it to that.

Vendor Score: 7 

Results – From the end of the dance to being posted on the wall I would say it took about 30 – 45 minutes. Not as good as others I have seen. There was also one dance where the judge and mislabeled the score sheet, and had I not asked about the status of that dance, it may still not be up on the wall. That result was closer to 90 minutes to get.

Columbus is a FeisWorx feis but I did not think to check results online during the day.

Awards were in a room right in the results hallway, and were very convenient to the results. They awards staff was ‘wired’ into the results room and were able to pull up the dancers number on laptops to see all the dancers results. That was done better than most feiseanna.

If the awards had not been wired, the slower turnaround time would have brought this score down.

Results Score: 7.5

Feis Flow – Not too bad. We started at 11ish and had the last dance at around 2. Huge comps and limited musicians slowed things down a lot. They grouped the dance types together to take advantage of fewer musicians, and kept the numbers of age groups on each stage fairly small which helped. A shorter lunch, which lasted a little over an hour, may have helped too.

Feis Flow Score: 7.5

Scoring

Remember, scoring now has 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating for all items including the venue, food and vendors.

Feis Score – 7.25  (which really benefited from the judge score, otherwise I would not have had it this high)

And the WTF Rating – a 6.92

What did you think?

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Dayton Feis 2013 – The Inner Sanctum

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aka – things are not always as they appear. This is the follow up article that I mentioned in my Dayton Feis review from last week.

I know I have mentioned many times that I have not run a feis, and have no idea what goes on behind the scenes, but for the Dayton Feis, I had the privilege of working the morning shift in the results tabulation room. This was a great opportunity, one of those paradigm shifting things (if you are a Stephen Covey fan), that made me realize things are not always as they seem.

The room had 5 laptops setup for entries and it seems at least 3 of them were manned at any time. They had all been checked and rechecked, and the people who had done all the setup(fewer people than I assumed by the way) were  ready. We were given an overview of the application since many of the volunteers had not worked results before.  We were also given the contingency plan in case anything hit the fan, and that was to write out the results on paper, and send them to the results board. There was an ‘in’ basket were envelopes from the dance area came in, and an ‘out’ basket were results that had been entered and printed went, bound for the awards area to be posted for viewing.

As you can imagine, things started slowly. As envelopes started trickling in, ‘it’ hit the fan. As results were being entered, the application would shut down unexpectedly. As we started writing out the results to be posted, one of the Feis people was on the phone with tech support almost immediately, and in a relatively short amount of time, had a work around for the issue. Soon, all the laptops were churning out results pages.

At the laptops, there was a reader and an input person, and considering I am a geek in real life, I got to input results. The application was relatively easy to use, but I did have some usability issues with it, but I digress, as that has nothing to do with the feis or the people who ran it. The tag team concept worked pretty well, and there were often lags where we were waiting for envelopes to come in. There were also times when there were some waiting to be recorded, but I would say in general, from hitting the ‘in’ box to hitting the ‘out’ box, was generally less than 15 minutes.

This is where I had my paradigm shift, and probably the part where you are saying, ’15 minutes!? That is pretty darn good. Why so long to the boards?’ 

I had the same question. IMHO, I think there was a lag with the runners trying to keep up with things. Also, I cannot speak to the process at awards where the results went, were filed appropriately, and then posted, but can see where that could add to any apparent ‘lag’.

So, I wanted to compliment the Dayton Feis Results organizers on running results, no matter what my comments about the rest of the feis may have been, this part was done extremely well.

I guess my other point is, next time I say to myself or fellow feis goers, ‘I wonder what the hell the problem is in the results room’ I will stop and remember everything that goes into getting a result from the Judge, all the way to the wall.

 

In the interest of full disclosure – if you read my review, you know the girl child danced at Dayton and although I saw the score sheets from the judges for two of her dances, I did not enter the results for either of them into the system.  

 

Dayton Feis 2013

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The 41st annual Dayton Feis was held on June 22nd, 2013 at Sinclair Community College in Dayton, Ohio.

Venue – This is the second time I have done the Dayton Feis at Sinclair. If you are curious here is the review for last year. I don’t think the venue is bad, but I think it has a few limitations.

The feis was split into three floors of the building. The competitions held on the lowest level in an indoor track and field building, a second floor that had a cafeteria, the tabulation room and where the OC/PC presentations were done, and the top level where results were posted and awards were presented. Lots of stairs so not the best for people with limited mobility, but there were elevators available.

There were six stages, which in general were good sizes. The smallest was 24 x 20 and the largest was 32 x 32 (one of the champ stages). While the smaller stage is bigger than some I have seen, the issue with this one is that it was half of a joined stage (stages 5 & 6) that were split down the middle by a piece of tape. Last year I was OK with that, but I am less of a fan this year, especially with the size of some of the comps on those stages. These stages were sharing a musician like last year, but I do feel there was enough room to separate these two, add a little more size and still share the musician.

I saw multiple slips and falls and could see ‘stuff’ on one of the champ stages. Couldn’t tell if it was hair pins, or whatever, but it was obvious. I did not see any floor cleanup or mopping during the day, not saying there was none, but I saw none.

Chairs seemed adequate, a bit heavy for OC/PC but that seems to be the norm. There were lots of standing viewers.

Camping in the dance area was very limited, but the second level had a lot more area available, just not as convenient.

As mentioned, results and awards were on the third floor, and as long as you were done dancing, that was cool, you could just wait upstairs (which is also where you exited the building). Otherwise, having them two floors up caused a lot of walking and stairs during the day.

Parking was plentiful, pretty close, and only $2.

Vendors were at one end of the room, and there were a lot more than last year. I thought they were easy to get to, and separated nicely from the stages.

Venue Score: 8  Would have been better with more camping in the competition area and if everything was on the same floor, otherwise, really not that bad.

Judges – The girl child danced 4 times and was judged by 4 different judges. As good as it gets in my opinion.

Judge Score: 10

Music – All stages except 5 & 6 had their own musician. 5 & 6 shared one, but that really did not seem to be too much of an issue. I did witness one rather long stoppage when dancers were lined up on both stages, and they just milled about waiting for the musician to return.

Maybe my suggestion of separating stages 5 & 6 will be seen and they can add on another musician next year. 🙂

Musician Score: 7.5

Food – Using the college concession worked to the feis advantage. Food was plentiful, had some variety and was priced for college students. There were also healthy options like fruit cups and hummus and chips in addition to pizza etc…

Food Score: 9.5

Vendors –  A big improvement over last year! George the shoe guy had his table, and the ribbon key chain lady, and the shortbread guy (if you are from this area, you probably know these people), and the wig people, and the t shirt table that had a nice variety of add-ons for the t-shirts. In addition though, there were several jewelry tables, and several vendors with Irish items like hats, scarves, shirts, nic nacs etc…  A nice browsing/shopping experience.

Vendor Score: 9.5 

Results – For reasons I will explain in another post this week, I thought the results were handled pretty well. The ones that I checked were up on the board within 30 minutes.

Dayton is an eFeis feis so electronic results were not available right away like some are on FeisWorx, and the feis was not tweeting or otherwise posting results electronically

Awards were on the same floor with the results, and they had a variety of awards available for Prizewinner 1st place winners.

If there were any negatives, it would be that the results needed to be posted in a more organized fashion. They were just posted as they came out and there was no order to them. IMHO, each comp should have been grouped together and posted in the same area on the board so all results for that comp could be easily viewed.

Results Score: 8

Feis Flow – Not too bad. We started at 10ish and had the last dance at around 3. Huge comps and lots of them slowed everything down a little, but without adding more stages, I don’t know how that could have been better. Our day would have been longer but they moved a few of the last dances to another stage to help get them get done earlier. The stages moved along pretty well I thought.

I did hear complaints that the lunch took to long with someone saying an hour and a half, but I was trying to sell a dress, eat some pizza and find my daughter, so I really did not notice.

Feis Flow Score: 7.5

Scoring

Remember, scoring now has 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating for all items including the venue, food and vendors.

Feis Score – 8.25

And the WTF Rating – a 8.57. Great job Dayton!

Remember to look for a special Dayton Feis 2013 post coming later this week.

What did you think?

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Cleveland Feis

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gcfsLogoThe Cleveland Feis was held on May 26th, 2013 at the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University in Cleveland, Ohio.

Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Cleveland Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Wolstein Center, and I thought it was just OK as feis a venue.

There were ten listed performance stages for the feis, but I only saw eight of them in the arena (3 – 10) so I am not sure where stages 1 and 2 were, and therefore cannot comment on those. I walked the entire upper area of the arena, and the awards and vendor area, so 1 & 2 must have been in a different section of the arena if they were set up.

Each stage in the arena was separated by large curtains hanging down from the arena catwalks. The curtains were on 3 sides of each stage (except the one on the end) and really seemed to constrict the area around the stage, making them seem really tight. They were so crowded in fact, that they had the musicians crammed into one corner and there was only room for one row of dancers at a time during a set.

Stage 3 was the ‘big’ stage that I saw at 24 x 24 feet and the size seemed adequate, but I did see a number of dancers slip on that stage. Not sure if there were any high or slick spots. The other stages I saw were small-ish at 16 x 20 feet and I saw at least one dancer go off the edge of the stage and finish her set on the side. I think the stage size was OK, but a little bigger would have been better for some of the more advanced dancers who ‘travel’ while dancing.

There was probably 10 – 15 feet (it seemed) between the judges table and the first row of seats where viewers could watch the dancing, and very little room for dancers to line up for their dances next to the stage, so dancers tended to congregate in the 10 – 15 feet behind the judge. This not only made viewing difficult for people in lower seats, but also made it hard to get from one place to another on the floor.

Feis results were posted on a big temporary wall at the far end of the arena, and the awards were on the same end of the arena, so all fairly convenient.

Parking was adequate with a parking garage less than a minute walk from the center. It was pay parking but the pay machines I found were out of order, plus, by the time we left, the gates were raised so I cannot comment on the cost.

A negative, arenas are not the best for older viewers and those with mobility issues, as well as parents with small children and strollers. I did not see any elevators to get from the upper area to where the results were (not saying there were none). I also saw A LOT of people trip on the steps in the arena. Step heights, even the cement steps were uneven and a bit hard to navigate. (Not the feises issue but a venue issue).

Venue Score: 6 

Judges – Daughter danced 4 times and had 2 different judges. With as many stages as they had, I would think they could have rotated more often.

Another thing I saw was one of the judges seemed to be very easily distracted by things going on around him. While the girls were dancing he would glance off to the sides and even behind him instead of watching what the dancers were doing. Others commented on this too.

Judge Score: 4

Music – Each stage had a musician or two, and as long as you were close to the stage, you could hear them fine. I asked my daughter if she had any issues hearing them and she said no. If you were higher in the arena, there was a lot of ‘musical confusion’ and it was hard to tell one musician from the other. The musician at stage 3 seemed really loud.

On stage 10 I understand there was some tempo issues and the musician was playing to fast for some of the dances.

Musician Score: 7

Food – Convention center food at stupid prices. It cost me $10 to get 2 pretzels and a bottle of water. Other food choices were pizza, hot dogs and nachos, if you could get those, since when lunch hit, the concession stands started running out of food. The one I was at had no pizza, only a few pretzels and from what I could tell, not enough hot dogs to feed the number of people in line. Small sodas were $3 and large were $5  just to show how stupid some of the other prices were.

A man I asked said the pizza he had wasn’t the worst he ever ate, for what that is worth. The pretzel my wife had was greasy and she could not eat it.

They also had a no outside food rule. Sorry, if you are going to have no outside food, you need to have:

  • healthy options
  • reasonably priced options
  • enough to feed everybody
  • enough variety to handle dietary restrictions (we have nut and gluten issues in our house)

Food Score: 1

Vendors – George the shoe guy, and the other shoe guy, the feis tshirts, some glittery stuff and a nice jewelry table, but no ‘fun’ Irish stuff.

Vendor Score: 5

Results – And it goes downhill from here…

The first result we waited for was not posted for nearly 2.5 hours. When I asked about it, the lady researched and found that it had been filed without being written on the wall. She did admit that it had still taken almost 2 hours to get to them. The results for the rest of the dances all hovered around the 1 hour mark.

Another issue is that they only had two people handling results and there seemed to be confusion posting, as I saw a number of results posted in the wrong comp numbers. Someone had complained to me about that before I even went to the results area and I thought it might have been a fluke, but while I was standing there, I pointed out to the poster that they had just put 412 results in the 512 comp blocks. There was a lot of comps and I think those people could have used some help to spread out the responsibility.

Results Score: 3

Feis Flow – Just OK. My daughter danced 4 dances and from start to finish (including waiting for results) she was done in about 4 hours. They only had three different age comps on the stage but  they seemed to rotate a little slowly. I think the fact they could only put around 10 girls on stage at any one time, and some of the comps had over 25 dancers contributed to this.

I thought the awards table needed more help too. We were standing in line and the people behind the table would be moving stations, restocking awards etc… and we had to wait a bit to pick up an award. It seemed a bit unorganized and there were not set roles for the people working that area. It was a bit chaotic.

Feis Flow Score: 5

Scoring

Been thinking about it and I probably need to separate the ‘feis’ score from the overall score since the feis people do not control (necessarily) the venue, food, or vendors. Scoring will now have 2 parts, the feis score consisting of Judges, Music, Results and Flow and then the overall WTF rating.

Feis Score – 4.75

And the WTF Rating – a 4.42. Sorry, a number of negatives hurt this feis overall.

What did you think?

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Queen City Feis

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queencityThe 10th Annual Queen City Feis was held Saturday, May 11th, 2013 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH.

Venue – This is the third or fourth feis I have attended at the Duke energy Center, and I like it as a feis venue. There were seven performance stages in one large room and like Buckeye, the stages were spaced out well, but not so far apart that getting back and forth between stages was difficult. Stages 6 and 7 were for OC and PC and were really big. They were in the same room, but sectioned off by a partition. The other 5 stages seemed a bit bigger than what I am use to seeing, and if I figured right, 24 x 24 feet, at least the stage we were on was.

Camping was very adequate but it still amazes me that people cram into smaller areas and camp in the walkways to be near their stage when there is so much room available.

Seating at the stages for viewers was good.

Feis results were posted on a big wall on one end of the room and awards were right next to results lists, all very convenient.

Parking was sufficient in parking garages within a block of the hall, but a bit pricey at $10. Seemed higher than I remember from previous feiseanna, but there was a big pet expo at the Duke Energy Center too, so maybe they jacked it up a bit.

Venue Score: 8.5 

Judges –Judge rotation was really good, my daughter danced three competitive dances and was judged by three different judges. She also did the Treble Reel and was judged by one of the three, but I don’t really count that as a repeat.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Considering how far apart the stages were, each stage had to have its own musician. No music bleed over and I did not see any major stoppages because of music issues.

Musician Score: 10

Food – Big venue concession stand, pretzels, chips, sandwiches, soda etc…, a little variety with paninis, cubans and some others. There some food carts for lemonade, shaved ice and smoothies. There was a coffee counter out in the ‘lobby’ that served Stabucks but was not a Starbucks.

For the food, I thought the prices were really high however. A salad was $8 or higher as were many of the sandwich options. A hot dog, $4, Gatorade $3.50, sodas over $2 and beer over $6. Trying to eat healthy was a bit cost prohibitive. Not impressed.

Food quality was not bad for what we did get however.

Food Score: 4

Vendors – George the shoe guy, a feis tshirt guy, and the ‘wig & stuff’ table, some jewelry, Irish nic nacs, the photographer, etc. There was a nuts and chocolate table that had some good stuff that was not too expensive.

See the complete vendor list.

Vendor Score: 8

Results – Very good, very fast… 15 minutes-ish for the results to hit the wall, maybe a little bit longer, but anything under 30 is not bad compared to some feisanna I have been too. This was particularly good.

I did not notice if there was any electronic posting as the paper copies were out so quick.

Results Score: 9

Feis Flow – Not too bad. My daughter had 3 competitive dances, skipping the TJ, and from start to finish (including waiting for results), she was done in about 6 hours, but there was a lunch break in there. They had six different age comps on the stage, and the comps were big, with most being spit into 2 groups each which slowed things down.

Combine that with the quick results and good venue, I would say the flow of the Queen City Feis was pretty darn good.

Feis Flow Score: 7.5 – a little slow.

And the WTF Rating, – a 8.14. Good judge rotation, good musician score really helped, bit I highly recommended this feis.

What did you think?

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Buckeye State Feis

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The 5th Annual Buckeye Feis was held on April 20th, 2013 at the Franklin County Veterans Memorial in Columbus, OH.

Please add your feis rating for the Buckeye State Feis at the bottom of this review!

We did not attend the 4th Annual due to a school change, but you can see my other Buckeye State Feis reviews here.

NOTE: I did not arrive till after 11 so comments are about the afternoon session of dancing.

Venue – This is the fourth feis I have attended at Vets Memorial, and I like it as a feis venue. There were six performance stages in one large room and I felt the stages were spaced out well but not so far apart that getting back and forth between was difficult. Stages 1 and 2 were for OC and PC and I didn’t take note of the size of #1, but I saw #2 and it was big. The remaining stages were all good size.

If there were any negatives regarding the stages, it was they appeared to be very slippery. I saw two falls and multiple slips in the 2 hours I was watching our stage, and heard of, and saw, other injuries due to falls on other stages. I did not see the crew mop the stage, but they did ‘dust it’ once, which I do not think is sufficient to keep the slipiness to a minimum.

Camping was available in the center of the venue and stages were on the outer perimeter. Camping was crowded but appeared sufficient and people generally seemed to respect the no camping signs.

Seating at the stages for viewers was a bit limited and IMHO there was room for more chairs for additional viewers.

Feis results were posted in a small area outside the big room and awards were in an area adjacent to both results and the big room, all very convenient.

Parking seemed sufficient but could have been a bit farther out depending on when you arrived. We got there in the transition from morning to afternoon sessions so were able to get fairly close, and either way there was a way to pull right up to the doors to drop off dancers and gear. Parking fee was $7 instead of the $8 posted on the site.

Venue Score: 7.5 

Judges – I think this section is stuck on repeat… daughter danced four dances and was judged by three different judges.

Judge Score: 9

Music – Each stage had their own musicians and on stage 5 there were 2. I did not hear any ‘bleed over’ from one stage to the other and the dancers did not seem to have any issues.

Musician Score: 8.5

Food – Regular big venue concession stand, pretzels, chips, sandwiches, soda etc… Regular concession prices. They did bring in some food carts including crepes, pitas, shaved ice and coffee which added some variety to the norm. Prices in the carts were also ‘higher’ but not stupid high, and we tried the crepes, pitas and coffee carts and all were good

Food Score: 8

Vendors – Very limited, George the shoe guy, a tie-dye feis tshirt guy, and the ‘wig & stuff’ table, but that was it. No Irish garb, souvenirs, jewelry etc… a little dissapointing. I know, its a dance competition, not a shopping trip, but where else am I going to get my Irish SWAG fix?

Vendor Score: 6

Results – Big positive here! Results were out quickly, and for the first dance my daughter did, the results were out before the second dance started. Generally I would say they were posted on the wall in 15-25 minutes, although that seemed to slip a bit as the day progressed. I did find that many times however, FeisWorx had the results posted before a hard copy made it to the wall… why was I doing so much walking?

Results Score: 8

Feis Flow – Excellent! My daughter danced 4 dances and from start to finish (not including waiting for results) she was done in 2 hours. They had only five different age comps on the stage and they rotated quickly. This may be due to lower numbers in some of the comps but some had over 20 dancers.

Combine that with the quick results and good venue, I would say I was very pleased with the flow of the Buckeye Feis.

Feis Flow Score: 9

And the WTF Rating – a 8.0. Nice Job Buckeye! A highly recommended feis.

What did you think?

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North Coast Feis Eats

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When we attended the North Coast Feis we stayed in downtown Cleveland which provided us a nice variety of eats. As I have in past posts on this blog, I wanted to point some of the restaurants out so the next time you feis in the area, you have an idea where you might want to try with a little info to back it up. Anyway, here goes for Cleveland…

Grumpys – We hit Grumpys for breakfast as it was between the hotel and the IX Center and was recommended by the hotel staff. This is one of those local places we were lucky enough to find. Great menu, huge portions of a lot of standard and not so standard breakfast fare, and VERY reasonable. This place will be our Cleveland breakfast place and I highly recommend it!

Flannerys – An Irish pub downtown. Good food, great beer selection, but get there early if there is a game in town. Recommended, but know in advance it is a bit pricey.

Winking Lizard – A definite recommendation if you are a beer fan, a huge selection, a lot of which I had not heard of. Food was excellent and prices were very reasonable. Three of us ate (and drank) REALLY well for half of what we paid at Flannerys. Great Bar food selection and family friendly. Keep in mind the ‘game in town’ rule. We will go back again.

If you found places you like in Cleveland, please add your comments and less share the ‘food love’.

North Coast Feis Review

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The North Coast Feis was held on February 2nd, 2013 at the IX Center in Cleveland, OH.

Venue – The IX Center was pretty good as a feis venue. The feis wasn’t in the main area of the IX Center, but instead, downstairs. Not fancy, and they seemed to have a little temperature issue in the champ area early afternoon (got very warm), but they got it worked out a bit later in the day.

Camping was not sufficient and viewer ‘bleed over’ into traffic areas was, as usual, an ‘annoyance’.

There were 7 stages labeled A – G, with G being the champ stage. It appeared to be a bit bigger compared to the other stages, which looked smallish to me (but I think they were 20 x 20). There was good separation between the stages though, and I didn’t really notice any of the ‘music confusion’ you get when stages are too close together. They seemed to be a little short on chairs for viewers, and probably could have used a few more per stage.

Parking was good, not all ‘close’, especially considering the snow, but plentiful.

Venue Score: 8.5

Judges – Really good judge rotation. Sometimes they would rotate twice between my daughters dances. She had 4 different judges for the 5 dances she did, so no complaints.

Judge Score: 9.5

Music -Each stage had its own musician and as mentioned above, there was no music bleed over due to good separation between the stages. The musician on our stage did not take a pee break that I saw. I heard no music complaints from anyone else.

Musician Score: 9.5

Food – I saw normal convention center fair, pizza, pretzels etc… but we didn’t eat there so I didn’t get a good look. I was surprised by drink prices though with $12 for a water, Gatorade and a soda.

They did have beer, but sorry @washcap37, no Yuengling, only Bud and Bud Light.

Food Score: 7

Vendors – The shoe guy, and feis t-shirts, but the girl child didn’t like the design. Wigs, as always, a nice jewelry booth I had not seen before, but really not too much else.The thing I thought was COOL, and had not seen at a feis before, was a photo booth, but I didn’t catch the prices. You can see all the vendors at the the feis site under Vendors.

Vendor Score: 8.5 (a little extra for originality)

Results – Great work on results, out really quickly and they used social media to post info, although not quite as quick as a walk to the ‘scoreboard’. I always complain about no Twitter or Facebook posting, but I can’t do that here.

Results Score: 10

Feis Flow – I think the number of stages helped with the flow. They did not have to put quite as many comps at each stage like at many feises and even with comps in the 20s, my daughter finished 5 dances in under 3 hours (including the Treble Reel at lunch). Great flow. Grouping of age comps would have sped it up some, but on our stage there were only about 3 age groups, so it was still quite good.

Feis Flow Score: 9

And the WTF Rating – a WTF Rating is 8.85 which is the BEST WTF review score so far. Great job North Coast!

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!.