Gem City Feis Review
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!.
It’s my daughters favorite feis! Still unable to feis due to July’s broken ankle craziness. Hope to see ya in April as Beth also will not be ready for the Oireachtas:-(