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’.
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.
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 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.
