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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!

Pittsburgh Halloween Feis Review

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NOTE: When you are done reading, please see the comments for a follow up by the Feis Chair.

The Pittsburgh Halloween Feis was held on October 6, 2012 at Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Pittsburgh Airport in Pittsburgh, PA.

Venue – The Hyatt wasn’t terrible as a feis venue, but I did have some ‘issues’ with it.

From the syllabus I see there were five stages but I really only saw three of them. They were good size and although they were all in the same room, there was adequate room to move between them. They also had sufficient chairs for viewers.

OBSERVATION: I did not see any ‘campers’ in the seats around the stage, not saying it did not happen, but it was not rampant as it is in many feises. A nice, less aggravating seating plan 🙂

Camping spots were available in the halls and other meeting rooms around the ballroom and seemed adequate.

A venue ‘issue’ was the concession set up. They set up serving tables in one of the halls which happened to be the main hall between the dance areas and the results area, and the lunch rush was just a huge traffic jam of people trying to get from one area to the other. They could have used one of the meeting rooms which would have helped the congestion.

Vendors were also set up in the halls which constricted flow a little, but it was not terrible.

Parking was bad and due to construction at the airport was extra bad. We ended up in extended stay parking the first attempt, and the nice man in the exit booth routed us to the right parking. Hotel parking (aka Long Term) was very full so there was a bit of a walk to the hotel, not good for some attendants. The feis did pay for parking, and they provided us with tickets to pay, but it was not obvious on how they were to be used. I saw some ‘aggravation’ with people trying to leave who were unsure what to do.

Venue Score: 6.5

Judges – My daughter danced four dances and was judged by three different judges, pretty darn good.

Judge Score: 9

Music – Each stage had their own musicians, always good. Our stage musician took several breaks, one seemed a bit ‘extended’, so much so that it was obvious. Other than that, nothing out of the ordinary.

Musician Score: 8

REALIZATION: I think I may be getting burned out on feising…. I feel like I was not quite as observant at this feis.

Food – Hot dog, pretzels, pizza, salad, drinks and sundries… all reasonably priced. A negative, a quarter pound hot dog was $3 and a salad was $5, which kind of put the kabash on healthy eating decisions. Not bad, but could have used a little more variety since it was catered by the hotel.

Food Score: 6

Vendors – A feis tshirt guy, and a shoe booth (not George)… always there. Nice jewelry and knit goods, the wig ladies, need I go on?

Vendor Score: 7.5

Results – This was a huge negative. My daughter danced her first dance between 11 and 1130, they broke for lunch, and then continued dancing. She finished her 4th dance at nearly 2 and the results for the first dance had not been posted when we checked before her fourth dance started. It was out shortly after, and the last three results came out by 3 so it seemed to speed up some, but in the meantime, there was a LOT of grumbling from dancers and parents.

Results Score: 3

Feis Flow – I thought the feis flow was pretty good. Age group dances were kept together with only a few dances between, always help the flow. During the lunch break I saw one of the feis staff go around announcing break was over, and got everything going again about 30 minutes after break started. I thought that was good and had not seen that much effort put into keeping the flow. (I did find out there was a wedding reception planned for later that day in the same room since the hotel double booked, which may explain the extra effort).

Feis Flow Score: 8

And the WTF Rating – a WTF Rating is 6.86.

Rock River Valley Feis Review

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The Rock River Valley Feis was held on September 8th, 2012 at the Wellness and Sports Center, Harper College in Palatine, IL.

Venue – I thought the Wellness and Sports Center was a nice venue. Everything was in close proximity to the stages and there was room to move around, more so than some recent feiseses.

There were 6 stages all within what most of us would call a basketball arena. The OC and PC stages were in the center, taking up most of the basketball court, and were a really good size. There were three stages on one end of the court, smaller and a little close together, and then one on the other end of the court, similarly small, and off by itself. If there  was a negative comment, I would say that the three that were together were too close and that music bleed from one stage to the next apparently made it hard for some judges to focus on the dancers on their stage (valid concern not smartbutt remark like you may have come to expect from me).

The ‘arena’ was two floors tall and the top of the bleachers on one side exited into the vendor area, and the bottom on the same side exited into the results area. The concession was at one end of the arena, and awards and registration were just a short walk down the hall.

Parking was great and there was lots of it. There was a bit of walk if you didn’t get there early enough, or refused to park in staff parking (I probably could have but it was marked staff only, and there are a college cop giving out tickets).

If there were any negatives to the venue, its that the bleachers were hard to navigate for smaller children and older people, and there was no good place to display used dresses for sale. Dresses were hung on the end of the bleachers and there were literally(probably) a 100 dresses hung over the top of one another in a small space. Bad selling and buying experience.

The first issue is hard to fix but the second one should be easy 🙂

Venue Score: 9

Judges – My daughter danced five dances and was judged by four different judges. Good rotation.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Each stage had their own musician and I did not see any of them take a break. I also liked that there was variety, accordion, violin/fiddle, flute etc… Nice mix.

Musician Score: 10

Food – A local pub catered the event, the food was good and the prices were very fair. Not a lot of variety and no hotdog/hamburger things that may have appealed to more people, but I didnt hear any complaints.

Food Score: 8.5

Vendors – A feis tshirt guy, and George the shoe guy… do you see a pattern here? They also had some nice jewelry, the wig lady, and some gifty things. I really like shirts and I am a big guy and not much catered to my taste, but it was a good selection otherwise. You can see the vendor list here.

Vendor Score: 7.5

Results – very well done. Out in 15 minutes or less for most dances and results were right outside the stage area. Awards were just around the corner……. They did not tweet results (I think) which would have been nice, but I did notice they had posted results on their Facebook Page which I found later and am not sure if they were doing that during the feis.

If there were any ‘issues’ with the results/awards, it was the awards table. Those people were doing their best but you know how it is, all the girls wait till the end, flock the table, and there was no lines there. The awarders were passing notebooks with results back and forth, so there was no telling where you should line up and I heard one or two moms getting a little testy. Thankfully, I found our stage notebook right away and fended off the testy moms while the nice lady gave the DD her awards. I can see where it could have been handled better though. Sorry -2 extra points for the awards distribution.

Results Score: 7

Feis Flow – I thought this feis was well run but I heard a lot of griping from parents. I realize though that the gripers were the ones who didnt get started till after lunch and if they are like me, they get to the feis early so as not to miss anything.

They kept the age group dances close together and although we did not get started till 245, my DD had 5 dances done and scored by 415. Thats pretty darn good.

They had a lunch break, and that is when they did their Rock and Reel which, although a lot of fun, took a long time to get started and finish which added to the length of the day. That was one of the main griping points for some of those afternoon parents I mentioned earlier. I didn’t think it was horrible.

Feis Flow Score: 7

And the WTF Rating – Pretty darn good with a WTF Rating is 8.42.

Feis At The Falls Review

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The Feis At The Falls was held on August 11th, 2012 at The Conference Center Niagara Falls, Niagara Falls, NY.  Ever thought about going and didn’t know what to expect? Well here ya go…

Venue – The venue was nice and had two areas with six stages set up for ‘pre-champs’ in one, and two stages in the other area for Champs. Admittedly, since my daughter is in the Open/Prizewinner level, I don’t venture into champ land much, so I am talking about the area I was in. The stages were a nice size, had ample seating and good room between. The camping seemed plentiful but there were, as always, your ‘camping squatters’ who set up in the viewing seats and spread out their stuff. Can you tell that is a pet peeve? Parking was plentiful but pricey.

Judges – Three different judges rotated through my daughters 5 dances, so rotation was good. Two thumbs up.

Music – As far as I could tell, there was a musician at each stage and the musician at our stage took very short breaks, and only a few of them, so music was continuous. Great job on the musicians.

Lesson Learned: If you are a musician, don’t keep your side table to close to the stage because there is a good chance one of the dancers will launch it into the air with a kick while performing, sending your coffee, cell phone, etc… into the crowd. I know, it happened… I laughed.

Food – Typical convention center food at typical convention center prices. There is a TGI Fridays across the street, as well as a Starbucks, and some hotels with their own restaurants, so there were options.

Vendors – Standard vendors, the feis tshirt guy, Rutherford shoes, some wigs, clips, crowns and hair accessories, jewelry, etc… There was some Guinness shirts and Irish swag, but it was limited. There was also a window cling guy who had some fun dance designs, but I decided not to buy until he sells a ‘tag-a-long cause he had to brother’ cling to go with the dance Mom and Dad and dancer clings. If you are interested, you can view the vendor list.

I was also impressed by the dress area. Usually it is a disorganized mess, but these guys had it together. Dress sellers had to register their dresses, pay a small fee, and then pass the info and dress on to the ‘dress shop staff.’ The staff arranged the dresses by ages for easy browsing. Well done there too.

Results – well done. I would say the results were out in under 15 minutes for most dances (that I saw) but there was the occasional longer wait. They appeared to have a great system, higher tech than most, and the folks giving out the awards pulled up results on computer monitors. Well run. Can I make a suggestion guys? Ever consider tweeting the results? Just a thought 😉

Feis Flow – I thought this feis was very well run. They provided lunches for the judges at the stage tables so there was no ‘lunch break’ per se. It was so smooth that our last dance, the second to last one on our stage, was done before 2 p.m. That’s kind of unheard of in my experience. Very well done! (a local dance Mom did report that that was not common and it was the first time she had seen it at this feis too).

And the WTF Rating – What can I say, overall I was very impressed and give this feis a 9.0.