Milwaukee Feis 2014, 2nd Opinion/0 Comments/in , , /by

Mom X2 also attended the Milwaukee Feis and sent in her review in her Good/Bad/Other format. It is always good to get varying opinions!

NOTE: The Milwaukee Poll is on the first Milwaukee 2014 Review I posted and can be found here.

The 25th Milwaukee Feis was held at the UWM Student Union on August 9th, 2014.

The Good

  • In celebration of the 25th feis, all dancers (or whomever made it to the registration tables) were given a quarter. When you get money (albeit $.25!!) back for dancing, it can’t be a bad day!
  • Venue is easy to get parking (garage or street). If you know the area, lots of great restaurants and things to do.
  • Stages are spread apart and have ample room. Some even had super comfy chairs that had desk surface attached, which was awesome.
  • Food court was reasonably priced and the variety was great.
  • Run back to back with McMennamin Feis, which gives many dancers fantastic competition.
  • Results were posted within MINUTES of competitions being done. It was the fastest posting ever.
  • Well run. After 25 years, they have it down.

The Bad

  • Stages were spread apart which was difficult when chasing multiple dancers. However, the committee posted progress of multiple stages in a central location and that was MOST helpful.
  • Stages ran wildly slow or fast….hard to pace with multiple dancers.
  • Crowded
  • The Union is a maze of hallways and staircases. A challenge with slower moving older folks.

The Unique

  • One of the Judges at Stage 6 took the time to congratulate the numerous dancers of one competition. She explained to the dancers (and then the audience and parents) how beautiful and tough the competition was. All danced beautifully, she explained, and were worthy of placing. It was perhaps the nicest thing I have seen a judge do and will forever remember how kind she was.
Milwaukee Feis 2014 Review/0 Comments/in , , /by

milThe 25th Annual Milwaukee Feis was held on August 9, 2014 at the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The feis was run back to back with the McMenamin Feis, and so some aspects of this review apply to the review for the Sunday feis as well.

This is the 3rd year we have attended this feis, and we have always found it to be a pleasant experience. This year was no different, and we anticipate returning again next year as well.

Venue

The student union makes a nice home for a feis, with separate rooms for each stage, plenty of seating and areas to spread out away from the stages. There is ample practice room, plenty of accessible bathrooms, and lots of food options for hungry dancers (and their families).

Street parking was available (we had to walk 2-3 blocks to be sure we were not in a restricted area on Saturday – Sunday we were able to park closer), and there was also parking available at the student union for a small fee (I believe under $10 for the day).

Registration and awards were on the first floor of the building as you walked in. Volunteers got my dancer registered & on her way quickly & even gave her a quarter for good luck!

The feis had 6 stages this year, plus a room for music competitions. 2 stages were PC/OC and 4 stages were grades. The stages were spread between the 2nd and 3rd floors, so there was a minimum of one flight of stairs to walk up & if you had more than one dancer, you might have been running up & down the stairs a lot during the day. I am sure elevators were available, but I never bothered looking, to be honest.

Vendors and used dress racks were in the hallway on the 2nd floor, with the exception of the t-shirt vendor who was on the 1st floor next to awards. We don’t spend a whole lot of time at the vendor tables (although we did purchase an Irish-themed t-shirt for the dancer’s brother as a reward for not complaining too much about the noise from all the hard shoes!), but the vendors seemed adequate. Balinvilla was there, as was A Touch of Ireland, and Photography By Harrington, among others.

Camping was available, but in areas away from the stages. We found camping locations both days with no problem, but did have a bit of a walk from our camp location to the stage.

Plenty of seating was available at all stages (including lots of comfy chairs at my dancer’s stage, where even the dancer’s brother was able to make himself comfortable to enjoy the treble reel!), but as is unfortunately typical, there was a fair amount of feis shaming going on.

Overall Venue Score: 9/10.

Judges

My dancer danced 6 times and was only seen by 2 judges, and one of those judges saw her for 4 dances. This is the one area I think this feis could improve on – I think more judge rotation is needed. Because this feis is run by age & by dance, I realize that dances are close together, but I still think another rotation of judges could have been accommodated.

Judge Score: 7/10

Music

Our musician was fantastic! I never even noticed her take a bathroom break! The setup of this feis, with one stage to a room really helps eliminate the “bleed” that you get from other stages at some feiseanna & makes it easy for the dancers to hear the music.

Music Score: 10/10

Food

The 2nd floor of the student union is home to a food court. Over the 2 days, our family dined on sub sandwiches, Burger King burgers, Chinese, Taco Bell, and more. Options were plentiful, and prices were not horrible. Healthy options (including smoothies, wraps, salads, etc.) were available, and ice cream (whether for celebration or consolation) was also an option. I did not see any kind of prohibition on bringing your own food into this venue, either, as is often the case at Mid America feiseanna, which was a nice change.

Food Score: 10/10

Results/Awards

Results were lightning fast and were also posted on Feisworx real time. We wait until our dancer is done with all her dances before checking any results, so I don’t know how long individual dances were taking to come out, but my dancer’s results were all complete & posted 5 minutes after she finished her last dance.

As the parent of a young Open dancer (where, as you all know, the competition is tough, and placement sometimes seems arbitrary, and it’s very easy for a child to go home without so much as a single ribbon as a reminder of their hard work & effort), I really appreciate feiseanna who provide generous placements/awards. So we really love that the Milwaukee Feis places a minimum of 50% in every competition. Medals were awarded for 1st-3rd place, and ribbons after that. The medals were on the smaller side, but were nice quality, and the ribbons seemed well made too. Like most Mid-America feiseanna, medals came without ribbons, but that would be my only complaint.

Results/Awards Score: 9/10

Feis Flow

For grades, this feis was run by age & dance, with U11 & younger in the morning and U12 & up in the afternoon. Our dancer started dancing around 9:45 and was done with her 6 dances by 12:15, which is excellent in my book. If you had dancers in both U11 & over 12, then your day would have been longer, however, so I could see that this would be a drawback for families with multiple dancers, but I & my lone dancer love this format!

Feis Flow Score: 9/10

Overall Score: 9/10

Great job, Milwaukee Feis!!

What Say You?

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McMenamin Academy Feis 2014 Review/0 Comments/in , , /by

mcMThe 4th Annual McMenamin Academy Feis was held on August 10, 2014 at the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. The feis was run back to back with the Milwaukee Feis, and so some sections of this review will refer to the Saturday feis review in order to avoid duplication.

This is the 2nd time we have attended this feis, and we have generally had a pleasant experience and would likely return again next year.

Venue

(See Milwaukee Feis Review for commentary)

Overall Venue Score: 9/10

Judges

My dancer danced 6 times and was seen by 4 judges, which is pretty darn good judge rotation in my book. My only complaint is that 2 of the 4 judges who saw her on Sunday had also judged her on Saturday. I know it would be difficult for the 2 feiseanna to coordinate completely new judges for grades dancers on Sunday, but it would be nice to see an attempt made.

Judge Score: 9/10

Music

Our musician had a few hiccups & missed notes, but overall was quite good. As mentioned in the review of the Milwaukee Feis, the acoustics of this venue are nice, with separate rooms for all stages, making it easy for the dancers to hear their music.

Music Score: 9/10

Food

(See Milwaukee Feis Review for commentary)

Food Score: 10/10

Results/Awards

Results were very fast and were also posted on Feisworx real time. We wait until our dancer is done with all her dances before checking any results, so I don’t know how long individual dances were taking to come out, but my dancer’s results were all complete & posted 10-15 minutes after she finished her last dance.

As the parent of a young Open dancer (where, as you all know, the competition is tough, and placement sometimes seems arbitrary, and it’s very easy for a child to go home without so much as a single ribbon as a reminder of their hard work & effort), I really appreciate feiseanna who provide generous placements/awards. So we really love that the McMenamin Feis places a minimum of 50% in every competition. Medals were awarded for 1st-5th place at a minimum, and I did see some dancers walking around with ribbons as well. The medals were on the smaller side, but were nice quality and quite heavy. Like most Mid-America feiseanna, medals came without ribbons, but that would be my only complaint.

Results/Awards Score: 9/10

Feis Flow

For grades, this feis was by dance, which can make for a long day. My dancer started dancing around 9:15 and and was not done until almost 3:30, which is pretty standard for a feis run in this format. The feis did a good job curtailing the lunch break to a reasonable 30 minutes, which was much appreciated. I know some people really prefer this format, as it allows for plenty of practice time & more judge rotation, but with a younger dancer, I find that this format is just plain exhausting. It probably didn’t help that the stage with the youngest dancers had the most kids on it & was the last to finish – some reallocation of dances/age groups would be welcomed next year.

Feis Flow Score: 6/10

Overall Score: 8.5/10

Great job, McMenamin Academy Feis!!

What Did You Think?

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Dairyland Feis 2014 Review/0 Comments/in , , /by

dairylandThe 2nd Annual Dairyland Feis was held on Sunday January 19, 2014 at the Olympia Resort and Conference Center in Oconomowoc, WI. The feis was run back to back with the Wisconsin Winter Feis, and so some parts of this review will refer to the review for Saturday’s feis to avoid duplication.

This was our 2nd year attending this feis, and we have generally had a pleasant experience.

Venue

See Wisconsin Winter Feis Review for commentary.

Overall Venue Score: 8/10.

Judges

My dancer danced 6 times and was only seen by 1 judge, and that judge had seen her for 4 of her 6 dances the day before. In my mind, this is totally unacceptable. Even with running by level, judges could have been rotated so the dancers were seen by 3 judges.

Judge Score: 2/10

Music

Our musician had some trouble going back & forth between slow & fast speeds for hard shoe. This caused some trouble for a few dancers, which was unfortunate. (It’s hard for an 8 year old to make a call on the fly when a musician plays 2 bars of the hornpipe at the fast tempo, then switches to slow without restarting – should we start dancing after 8 bars, even though it’s only 6 bars of slow, or should we wait?) We also had some bleed over from the champ stage we were next too, which didn’t help.

Music Score: 6/10

Food

See Wisconsin Winter Feis Review for commentary

Food Score: 7/10

Results/Awards

Results were lightning fast and were also posted on Feisworx real time. We wait until our dancer is done with all her dances before checking any results, so I don’t know how long individual dances were taking to come out, but my dancer’s results were all complete & posted 5 minutes after she finished her last dance.

This feis appeared to be placing only about 30% of the dancers, which is on the less generous side of most mid-America feiseanna. I personally prefer when a feis places a little more generously, but I also realize that 35-40% appears to be the standard in our region. Medals were awarded for 1st-3rd place, and ribbons after that. The medals were on the smaller side, but were nice quality, and the ribbons seemed well made too.

Results/Awards Score: 8/10

Feis Flow

For grades, this feis was run by level. My dancer did not dance until after lunch, but we were on the road home by 4:30, so things moved relatively quickly.

Feis Flow Score: 8/10

Overall Score: 6/10

The average came out to 6.5, but I had to round down due to the complete lack of judge rotation. That really MUST be fixed before next year …

What Did Ya Think?

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Wisconsin Winter Feis 2014 Review/0 Comments/in , , /by

winterfeis-picThe 14th Annual Wisconsin Winter Feis was held on Saturday January 18, 2014 at the Olympia Resort and Conference Center in Oconomowoc, WI. The feis was run back to back with the Dairyland Feis, and so some aspects of this review apply to the review for the Sunday feis as well.

This was the first year we attended this feis, and we had a pleasant experience overall.

Venue

The Olympia was a new venue for this feis this year, and I thought it was nice. It was an older hotel, and a little remodeling probably wouldn’t hurt, but structurally, it was a nice facility for a feis. There were several ballrooms for stages, room for vendors & practicing, and a nice remote (and pretty much unused!) location for camping.

Those who stayed overnight at the hotel enjoyed a very reasonable $89/night rate, and had use of an indoor pool.

Parking was available at the resort for free. Those who did not not stay at the resort were in some cases relegated to far outlying lots & had to take shuttles in.

Registration was on the first floor of the building as you walked in. Volunteers got my dancer registered & on her way quickly! Awards required a trip downstairs (an elevator was available).

The feis had 6 stages this year, plus a room for music competitions. 2 stages were PC/OC and 4 stages were grades. The stages were all fairly close, so even those with multiple dancers should not have had to walk too far.

Vendors in the hallway outside the ballrooms where the stages were, as well as with awards. We don’t spend too much time with the vendors, but they seemed adequate, and the dancer’s grandmother (who chose this feis to be the first she came to) was able to buy a little something for the dancer without any trouble.

Camping was available, but only in a remote location away from the stages. There was a progression board in the camping area that was kept up to date.

Plenty of seating was available at all stages, but as is unfortunately typical, there was a fair amount of feis shaming going on.

What The Feis Editors Note: Maybe a fair amount of feis rudeness, I don’t remember any shaming 😉

Overall Venue Score: 8/10.

Judges

My dancer danced 6 times and was only seen by 2 judges, and one of those judges saw her for 4 dances. This is the one area I think this feis could improve on – I think more judge rotation is needed. Because this feis is run by age & by dance, I realize that dances are close together, but I still think another rotation of judges could have been accommodated.

Judge Score: 7/10

Music

Our musician was fantastic! We did notice some bleed over of music from the other stage in the ballroom we were in, but it wasn’t as bad as it is in some other venues.

Music Score: 8/10

Food

The hotel had a grab & go type of area with bagels & other other breakfast things, as well as premade sandwiches, yogurt, etc. There was also a sit-down restaurant that was fairly reasonably priced.

Food Score: 7/10

Results/Awards

Results were lightning fast and were also posted on Feisworx real time. We wait until our dancer is done with all her dances before checking any results, so I don’t know how long individual dances were taking to come out, but my dancer’s results were all complete & posted 5 minutes after she finished her last dance.

As the parent of a young Open dancer (where, as you all know, the competition is tough, and placement sometimes seems arbitrary, and it’s very easy for a child to go home without so much as a single ribbon as a reminder of their hard work & effort), I really appreciate feiseanna who provide generous placements/awards. So we really love that the Wisconsin Winter Feis places a minimum of 50% in every competition. Medals were awarded for 1st-3rd place, and ribbons after that. The medals were on the smaller side, but were nice quality, and the ribbons seemed well made too. Like most Mid-America feiseanna, medals came without ribbons, but that would be my only complaint.

Results/Awards Score: 9/10

Feis Flow

For grades, this feis was run by age & dance, with U11 & younger in the morning and U12 & up in the afternoon. Our dancer started dancing around 9:00 and was done with her 6 dances by 12:00, which is excellent in my book. If you had dancers in both U11 & over 12, then your day would have been longer, however, so I could see that this would be a drawback for families with multiple dancers, but I & my lone dancer love this format!

I do understand that not all stages were as efficient as ours, and that some stages had significant delays, so I am reducing the score to reflect that.

Feis Flow Score: 8/10

Overall Score: 8/10

Great job, Wisconsin Winter Feis!!

What Say You?

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Celtic Spirit Feis PC/OC Review 2014

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csThe Celtic Spirit Feis was held on May 4th, 2014 at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, WI.

Editor’s Note:

Back to back feiseanna were held at the Wisconsin Center this weekend so the summaries and scores for Venue, Food and Vendors here are the same for the Saturday feis. Scores are below. Full descriptions can be found here.

This review is for the PC/OC portion of the feis. If you have comments for the Grades portion of the feis, please contact me and I can share them in a separate post, thanks!

Venue Score: 7  |  Food Score: 7  |  Vendor Score: 9

Judges

I actually had an issue with the judges for day 2, or more specifically, one judge. This particular judge during the time I watched, seemed to focus on a particular dancer if they noticed something they did not like about the other dancer. It came across as a snap decision, ‘nope don’t like that dancer, not going to look for anything good about them.’ Just gave me a bad impression and therefore did not like the judging on Sunday as much as the judging the previous day. This was on Stage 1.

Judge Score: 7

Music

Actually, the setup of the musicians and the issues I encountered with that setup on Saturday, remained on Sunday, so the score is the same.

Musician Score: 7

Results

Awards were in the same large area as the day before so there was plenty of room, but the time from the end of the comp to the announcing of results was a little slower on Sunday at just over 2 hours.

Results Score: 8

Feis Flow

I can sum up the flow like this, by 1p.m. it looked like over 95% of the comps had finished, and there was dancing on very few stages. That feis moved along. Great job!

Feis Flow: 10

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 – Not quite as good as the day before due to poorer Judge and Results scores. A better Flow score helped.

And the WTF Rating is 7.86… not terrible, and definitely worth another chance..

What Say You?

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Wisconsin Spring Feis PC/OC Review 2014

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logocolorThe Wisconsin Spring Feis was held on May 3rd, 2014 at the Wisconsin Center in Milwaukee, WI.

Editor’s Note:

Back to back feiseanna were held at the Wisconsin Center this weekend so the summaries and scores for Venue, Food and Vendors will be the same for both days and only listed in this review.

This review is for the PC/OC portion of the feis. Sorry, it got to hard to monitor stages and results for grades and pay attention to what was going on with TGC and her schedule. If you have comments for the Grades portion of the feis, please contact me and I can share them in a separate post, thanks!

Venue

This is the first (and second) feis I have attended at this venue and I am on the fence about the venue itself. It is huge and has lots of potential, but I do not think the space was adequately used.

There were 10 stages with stages 1 – 3 set up for PC & OC and 4 – 10 for grades. The huge hall was divided in half by a partition with the PC/OC stages butt up against it. Grade level stages 4 – 8 were in the same half of the hall, separated from the PC/OC stages by a large camping area, and an attempt at walkways between the stages and the camping area. Stages 9 and 10 were in the other half of the hall kind of off in the corners.

The other half of the hall had the results for grades set up on the partition that divided the hall, basically in back of stages 1 – 3. It also held the vendors (about 8 of them), a small smoothie cart and some tables for dining. It also held the awards area for PC/OC which was a nice size and accomodated that purpose better than any other feis I have seen while TGC has been at this level.

The PC/OC stages were very large, about 28 x 32 and covered with the non-slip material which made for a nice dance area. TGC danced on two different stages during the two days and had no problems, and I saw no slips or falls on either of them. TGC did say that stage 3 had either a loose board or high spot she noticed when she was practicing before the feis started, but that was the only complaint I heard.

Afraid that even though I watched a dance or two by friends on the grades stages, I did not notice to much about them.

Camping in the ‘designated area’ was not adequate for the number of people there Saturday. There was plenty of area in the other half of the hall but it appeared that rather than take a 60 second walk, piling on top of each other was preferred.

Camping in the viewer chairs, was as always, an issue. People ‘tried’ not to do that and piled there stuff behind the last row of chairs which impeded pedestrian flow. Add to that the people standing behind that gear, and the people standing behind them, trying to see the dancers, because they could not sit down for all the gear piled onto the chairs, and the walkway that was supposed to be about 10 feet wide quickly dwindled down to about 5 feet. Add in overflow camping from the other side of the path, well, you get where I am going with this.

The concessions were at either end of the hall and there was only one bathroom I saw in the hall, but more were located in the hallway outside, so not to bad.

I heard parking was $15 but to be honest, since we were in a hotel attached to the venue, we used hotel parking when we got there Friday night and did not get in the car till it was time to go home on Sunday.

If I had run the feis, I would have moved all the vendors up to the front of the hall between the main doors and the stages, there was probably 40 feet of free space that would probably would have fit them all. Then, I would use the other half of the hall to space out the stages more and add more camping, but that is just me 😉

Venue Score: 7  (but it has the potential to be 9 or 10. NOTE: Sunday seemed less crowded and more pleasant then Saturday)

Judges

PC/OC  always has 3 judges. They were attentive on our stage and took only one break that I saw. I realized with this back to back, that although there is always similarities in PC/OC judging, having 3 judges does not automatically mean a high score. Saturday was good, Sunday, less so.

Judge Score: 9.5

Music

Each stage had their own musician and according to TGC, the music was fine on the stage, but in the viewing seats it was really hard to distinguish between which stage was playing what. I also saw one dancer jump the gun which I believe was due to having a hard time hearing the music.

Musician Score: 7

Food

We only caught the lunch menu and it was much what you would expect for a ‘convention center’ venue. Hamburgers, hot dogs, fries, pizza. We had two cheeseburgers,  and one fries and it was $17, which seemed high, but the burgers were good and pretty big. There were lots of options if you wanted to venture outside the venue, but not many fast food establishments.

Food Score: 7

Vendors

The shoe guy, NOT GEORGE, who also sold t’s and sweatshirts, some nice knit wear, Irish nic nacs, jewelry, the wig ladies, Guinness wear, a ribbon fob booth but not Made by Mare, the photographer and the feis tshirt booth. Plus, we were able to find Irish M&Ms (Smarties) and I found Lucozade, which I first had in my Grandmothers store in Ireland when I was a kid (queue the reminiscing music). All in all, a nice vendor turnout.

Vendor Score: 9

Results

I am still getting used to how these PC/OC results work and I don’t know if I have determined the average yet, but I didn’t think these were hateful. It was about 90 minutes from the end of TGCs comp and the results and she was in a huge comp.

Awards were given in a large area off in an isolated part of the hall, so there was plenty of room to gather and the noise from the viewers was not a distraction to the other competitors.

Results Score: 9

Feis Flow

Gotta say that the flow of the feis was pretty good for the number of competitors. TGCs comp was done with both dances in about an hour and the comp was the biggest comp for a standard feis I have seen.

Casual observation of other stages and it seems like the flow on those was smooth and steady as well.

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 – Music brought this down a bit but the Results and Flow were pretty good considering the sheer numbers there.

And the WTF Rating is 8.36… not to bad and this is a feis we would definitely consider going back to.

What Say You?

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Milwaukee Eats

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We had an eclectic little restaurant recommended to us because of the filets, and were told they had some gluten free options. Did a quick Google search and found the Via website. Looked good, so we checked it out and were not disappointed.

Via offers plenty of gluten free pizza and pasta options, and the gluten free crust (according to the boy child) was pretty good, which is hard to do. All of us had pizza and it was the best Pizza Diavola I have had in the U.S. I had the opportunity to visit Italy a few times for the Navy and really enjoyed their pizza. These pizzas were more Italian style, made in a brick oven, and were pretty darn good right over here in ‘Merica,

The meal was a bit pricey, but we each had our own pizza, beers for dad, wine for mom, and drinks for the kids. I understand the filets are pretty good too 😉

WTF gives Via on Downer 2 thumbs up!

McMenamin Academy Feis 2013

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mcMThe 4th annual McMenamin Academy Feis was held on August 11th, 2013 at the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Editors Note: This feis is run as a back-to-back with the Milwaukee Feis and that review covers a few sections for both feiseanna. In an effort not to duplicate content and get myself banned from search engines, this was the easiest way. Sorry for the extra trouble.

Venue – See the Milwaukee Review for all the details

Venue Score: 9  (This also applies to the Milwaukee Feis for Saturday)  

Judges – The girl child danced 3 times and was judged by 2 different judges. I generally think that can be done better, but in this case, the dances were spread farther apart and the judges were rotating frequently. Actually, TGC was going to be judged by a third judge, but was offered a break by the first judge who had scored her, so it ended up in the duplication. Good rotation.

Judge Score: 9

Music – See the Milwaukee Review for all the details

Musician Score: 10 (This also applies to the Milwaukee Feis for Saturday)

Food –  See the Milwaukee Review for all the details

Food Score: 9.5  (This also applies to the Milwaukee Feis for Saturday)

Vendors –  See the Milwaukee Review for all the details

Vendor Score: 6 (This also applies to the Milwaukee Feis for Saturday)

Results – FeisWorx was at it again and had reults electronically in about 15 minutes.

For this feis however, the results and the awards were in the same place and dancers would pick up the awards where they checked the results. These volunteers were not linked via laptop, and were using the results sheet that had been posted on the wall to keep track of who had picked up awards. I think this feis did a poor job in this area when compared to its counterpart on Saturday.

Even with the kickin’ FeisWorx results, this area needs improvement.

Results Score: 7

Feis Flow – Not as good as Saturday. We started at 9ish and had the last dance and were through by 2. This also included a quick 30 minute lunch. The dances were spread much farther apart and that really slowed down the day. The slower turn-around between dances usually helps  judge rotation, but in this case it was so slow the judges started repeating.

Feis Flow Score: 7.5

Scoring

2 part scoring is in place, 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 – 8.375  A good score, but this feis is still relatively young and they can take some pointers from the Milwaukee Feis.

And the WTF Rating – a 8.28, still pretty respectable

What did you think?

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Milwaukee Feis 2013

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milThe 24th annual Milwaukee Feis was held on August 10th, 2013 at the Student Union at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin.

Editors Note: This feis is run as a back-to-back with the McMenamin Academy Feis and this review will cover a few sections for both feiseanna.

Venue – This is the first time I have done the Milwaukee Feis, in fact, this is the first feis I have done in Wisconsin, and I enjoyed it.

There were 7 stages at the feis, divided into two levels of the Student Union. The stages were each in its own space with plenty of seating, but, in this reporters opinion, limited camping.

Stages 1 – 4 were on the top level and included both the OC (Stage 1) and PC (Stage 2) stages. If my estimates are correct, each of those stages were near, or maybe a bit over 30′ x 30′. Plenty of room for the dancers.

Stages 3 – 7 were smaller, but I did not see any smaller than 24′ x 24′. They all had great seating too, but Stage 4 (the one on the top floor off by itself) was a little awkward because it had lots of bigger comfy chairs that did not allow for viewing as close in. That stage also really only had traffic on one side that seemed congested, but not terrible.

Stages 5 – 7 were also set up well and appeared to be 24′ x 28′. Stages 5 and 6 had plenty of seats and room to move around the seating area. Stage 7 did also, but not quite as much free space as 5 and 6.

I did have some issues with stage condition. Stage 7 literally had bowed floorboards on one end that contributed to a number of slips and trips. I also saw several slips on Stage 5 and one resulted in a bad fall.

Camping was probably adequate, but I really did not look closely on the top level. Camp areas were well defined and the only place I noticed ‘obvious camping in the viewing seats’ was at Stage 4 where the comfy chairs were… go figure.

Registration, Results and Awards were on the lower level and all close to one another. From the lower level it was a quick trip up the adjacent stairs to the two stage floors. Elevators were also available (but were slow).

On street parking was available, and parking in the Student Union parking garage was available, but cost $6. It was free in the garage on Sunday.

Vendors were in the hallway on the way in to where Stages 5 – 7 were, and on the ground floor near registration. Vendor areas did not seem to congest flow to stages as is the issue in many feiseanna.

The only issue I could see somebody having with the venue is if they had dancers on both floors, otherwise I really enjoyed it.

Venue Score: 9  (This also applies to the McMenamin Feis for Sunday)  

Judges – The girl child danced 3 times and was judged by 2 different judges. I generally think that can be done better, but the dances were very close together, literally one – three comps apart, so there was really not adequate time for a judge change. I do like feiseanna that go quick, so I can’t really ding them for this.

Judge Score: 8

Music – Every stage had their own musician and all stages were isolated enough where music bleed was no problem. I heard no complaints about the music, and saw none myself.

Musician Score: 10 (This also applies to the McMenamin Feis for Sunday)

Food – A college student union, how do you think the food was? All kinds of variety, subs, wraps, pizza, stir fry, donuts and breakfast items, ice cream, coffee, and probably some I do not remember, plus a little college store to buy other snacks and drinks as well as free standing drink sales booths. The only issue I had with the food was that the options were very limited for breakfast, and having a gluten-free issue in the family, it made it hard to find something. This was not an issue at lunch and there were several gluten free options. Everything was pretty good, and all fairly reasonably priced.

Food Score: 9.5 (This also applies to the McMenamin Feis for Sunday)

Vendors –  2 shoe vendors (George from Balinvilla was there), a nice jewelry and accessory table, 2 tshirt guys, and some shirts and sweatshirts. Noticeably absent was hair and wig vendors which I do not believe I have seen happen before. You can see the complete vendor list here.

I have been to enough of these so that I recognize the vendors and they recognize me, but I met a ‘ray of sunshine’ on Saturday. Victor from Amerigo and Amerigo describes himself as a ‘passionate Spainiard’, I describe him as a humming bird on speed, but in a good way. If you ever have the chance to say hi to Victor, you really should, you will walk away with a smile and a new friend.

Other than me being a Victor fan, I was kind of disappointed in the vendor offerings.

Vendor Score: 6 (This also applies to the McMenamin Feis for Sunday)

Results – This is another feis where FeisWorx was kickin’ out the results, in some cases in about 10 minutes, and I did not have the need to go and look at the board. There was one larger comp where it took 20 -25 minutes to hit FeisWorx, but generally it was less than 15 minutes.

For the Milwaukee Feis, you would go to the “wall” and then turn around and walk a few feet to pick up your awards. Milwaukee was wired and the award volunteers could look up all the results for the dancer. I like that.

I was really impressed with the whole Results flow but I was tied into FeisWorx the whole time, so I am scoring based on my experience. Your mileage may vary.

Results Score: 9.5

Feis Flow – Excellent. We started at 11ish and had the last dance and were through by 1. This included a 30 minute lunch and they stuck to their word. They grouped the dances close together which really helped speed us through, but it seems like we always have at least 1 dance after lunch. This quick turn-around between dances does limit the judge rotation, but I really can’t have it both ways.

Feis Flow Score: 9

Scoring

Keeping the 2 part scoring in mind, 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 – 9.125  An excellent feis score

And the WTF Rating – a 8.71, very respectable overall

What did you think?

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