1R – What The Feis

The Detroit International Feis was held on June 1st, 2013 at the Ultimate Soccer Arena in Pontiac, Michigan.

Venue – This is the first time I have attended the Detroit Feis and the first feis I have attended at the Ultimate Soccer Arena, and I thought it was excellent as a feis venue.

There were six stages for the feis and compared to recent feiseanna I have been to, these were huge. I did the mental math for the one we were on at it was 32 x 24, which seemed to be the standard for the four under-champ stages, and the 2 champ stages were as big or bigger. Didn’t really do the mental math for those two.

The venue was huge so there was a lot of room between stages and for camping. Stands served as viewing seats for stages 1 – 4 and chairs were set up for stages 5 and 6, so there was plenty of seating. Instead of chairs for the dancers, there was a sideline bench, which I guess are readily available at a soccer stadium, next to each stage. Considering the size of some of the comps, they probably could have added an additional bench to each stage for the dancers.

I did see a few dancers trip on one spot on stage 4, and saw and heard of some slipping issues, but the feis staff was proactive and they took breaks to mop the stages.

Feis results were posted on a big wall in one corner of the room, and the awards were co-located in the same spot, so all very convenient.

Parking seemed adequate in front of the venue and was free. We got there when lots of people were showing up and easily found a spot a few hundred feet from the door.

Vendors were at one end of the room, and I personally thought they were a little close to stage 1 which had A LOT of dances on it, so it was fairly crowded to begin with. Concessions and bathrooms were outside the main area as well as a pub, but they were indoors and connected so were easy to get too. Wifi was available, but my 4G phone was faster.

Venue Score: 9.5 (not sure what a perfect venue is, maybe I will when I see it, but this one is pretty close)

Judges – Daughter danced 4 times and had 4 different judges. You know me, that’s as good as it gets, but it seemed like the other stages did not have as good a rotation, so I have to deduct a little.

Remember ‘distracted judge’ from the Cleveland Feis last weekend, well he was back, and we were a little disheartened to see him as the first judge for my daughter. But, since the girl child placed first in that dance, we no longer see his distraction as an issue, in fact, that man is brilliant 😉

Judge Score: 8.5

Music – Each stage had a musician or two, and speakers for the stage, and there did not seem to be any issues, and I heard no complaints about the music.

Musician Score: 9.5

Food – A complete 180 from the food experience we had in Cleveland. One concession was drinks, smoothies, coffee, healthier snacks, some breakfast pastry kind of stuff, candy bars, etc and the prices were closer to convenience store prices (maybe a bit higher) but nowhere near some of the bigger venue pricing. Another area had hamburgers, pizza, wraps, chicken strips, etc.. all very good size and tasty. Three of us ate lunch for about $17 including food and drink.

There was also a pub on premise and although I did not venture upstairs to see it, the beer prices I saw at a beer cart downstairs were similar to what you would pay in your neighborhood bar, so who could complain?

Food Score: 8.5

Vendors – George the shoe guy, the feis tshirts, the wig ladies, fun Irish stuff like Guinness jersies and Hanna Hats, a few artsy things, shortbread cookies, the engravers, etc… so over all, not bad. See a complete list of the vendors. Not quite the selection of some, but a nice mix.

Vendor Score: 8

Results – I was surprised/impressed, and maybe I never paid attention before, but FeisWorx had results posted for the events in usually 30 minutes or less. Hard copies did not make it to the wall for closer to 45 – 60 minutes. When we went to get an award, the people at the table were kind of amazed Feis Worx already had them, and could not do anything for us until they received their hard copy.

Awards were right there with the results, and I liked the color coded ribbons that went with each specific medal, a bronze ribbon on the third place medal for example.

If there were any negatives, other than the amount of time it took results to get to the wall, for those people not clued into the FeisWorx connection, it was the fact that at some times, there was only one person working the awards, and if she was busy filing result sheets, people would be lined up waiting to pick awards up.

Thinking back, taking an hour to get to the wall would probably have irritated me if I did not notice the FeisWorx option, so I can only give a pretty good score for results.

Results Score: 7

Feis Flow -Not bad. My daughter danced 3 dances and a special reel. We started at 930ish and were done at about 3, and I think this was due mainly to a longer than average (in my opinion) lunch, and the special events being held after lunch instead of during like at other feiseanna.

I also saw that Stage 1 was loaded down with competitions and when our stage was finishing, Stage 1 was at about the two thirds point on their dance list. I admit, I have never run a feis, but I think there was plenty of room in the venue to add at least two more stages and spread out the load a little bit. There were two judges sitting at one of the stages for a while, so it appears they may have had the judges available, but that is an assumption. Seating for viewers may be an issue here, but I thought there were too many chairs at Stage 6, and possibly stage 5 too. (Remember, all my opinion).

Also, the specials dances seemed really unorganized. They were supposed to start right after lunch and the feis staff did not seem to have any idea exactly where they were going to be held 10 – 15 minutes after lunch was supposed to end. When they got it sorted out, the girl child told me the judge for hers gathered the dancers and asked how many steps, how many dancers at a time, etc… so she (the judge) did not seem ready.

That last comment was more about the specials, and in general, I thought the feis was run fairly well.

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 – 8.125

And the WTF Rating – a 8.35. A very respectable score, great job Detroit!

What did you think?

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St Louis Gateway Feis Logo The St Louis Gateway Feis was held on August 26th, 2012 at The Renaissance Hotel, St Louis, MO.

Venue – The Renaissance was really nice. A cool bar/coffee/restaurant with fun little niches for private conversations, eclectic setting and furniture, fun chairs with foot stools, nice lobby with ceramic title and cool mirrored surfaces, but, as a feis venue, it sucked.

There were 4 stages that were nice size in separate rooms, but the areas around all except the Champion area were small and very crowded. Seating was inadequate in each space as far as I could tell, on Stage 2 it definitely was. Squatters took up chairs making the issue worse, so people were standing in what space was left making it nearly impossible to move through the area. Hallways served as a camping areas, but chairs, coolers and blankets were not allowed by the hotel, so people stood around filling the hallways making getting around difficult.

Everything was extremely spread out. Stages were in the front of the hotel, food down the hall, vendors and practice stage farther down the hall, and results and awards even farther down the hall. Add to that the ‘change the mens rooms into ladies rooms for the event’ thing that occasionally happens, and that made the mens rooms literally on the far ends of the venue.

Parking was terrible. One lot was full and extremely hard to navigate through, and I was told the other lot was closed. The feis staff gave us tickets so that parking would only cost $2, but there was no instructions on what to do with them, so towards the end of the feis, there was a line of cars waiting to exit and no one could get out (go back to the ‘hard to navigate the lot comment’) and no one could get turned around, all of which compounded the parking issue even more.

Venue Score: 1

Judges – My daughter danced four dances and was judged by four different judges. You can’t ask for better rotation than that.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Each stage had their own musician(s) and stage two had a violin and an accordion player. This allowed one to take a break and the music could continue.

Musician Score: 10

Food – Hotel conference food which was pricey. They had a nice selection and had breakfast items early, and lunch items later and it all looked good, but still pricey.

Food Score: 7

Vendors – A feis tshirt guy, and George the shoe guy and that was it. And the feis t’s were just eh, the design was not great and they looked cheap. If you didn’t need shoes and like nice tshirts, you were out of luck.

Vendor Score: 2

Results – very well done. Out in 20 minutes or less for most dances and results and awards were in the same location. They did not tweet results which would have been nice.

Results Score: 8

Feis Flow – I thought this feis was pretty well run considering the irritations. We actually almost missed our first dance since things were running well (even considering the estimating start time that has worked nearly perfectly the past two feises). They kept the dances moving through and we were done with 4 dances by 2.

They had a lunch break, but brought the food to the judges and musicians, at least on our stage, which kept the break to around 30 minutes.

Feis Flow Score: 7

And the WTF Rating – If I was scoring this like I have the previous one, I would give it about a 4.5, but, I am trying a new scoring technique, scoring each section individually, and based on that, the score the WTF Rating is 6.4.

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Detroit International Feis

Scoring

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The St Louis Gateway Feis Review