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North Coast Feis 2015/4 Comments/in , , /by

ncf

The North Coast Feis was held on February 7th, 2015 at the IX Center in Cleveland, OH. This is the second year we have been at this feis at this level, and the 4th (I think) time we have been to the feis.

This year was very much a repeat of last year, and I was thinking about just pointing you to that last review 🙂  Instead, I will quote that, and point out what might be different. You can read the whole review here.

Venue

2014 Recap

The IX Center was OK as a feis venue. The PC/OC area was in the ballroom on the main level and was a good size room, but not adequate for the amount of people needing to be in there.

Camping was not sufficient and there was lots of camping in the viewer seating. Many areas were marked ‘no camping’ but they were full of campers, and that caused some flow issues for people trying to get from the front to the back of the room.

There were 3 stages labeled G – I, for PC and OC dancers. Stage sizes appeared to be about 20 x 24 and were small for the level of dancers performing on them. The stages were extremely slippery and there were lots of falls. The feis team mopped often but it did not help.

There was pretty good separation between the stages, but music could be heard from neighboring stages. It did not seem to impact the dancers much though.

Seating was not adequate for the viewers, but was probably all they could put in considering room size. The feis committee attempted to leave adequate room for people to move around (I refer back to the camping in the no camping area comment), but it really did not work out.

Parking was good, not all ‘close’, but plentiful. It was a bit pricey at $8. The weather was not great on that day but there was a large covered drop off area in front of the venue.

2015 Notes

Everything was pretty much the same, except:

  • The room was set up the same, but it did not feel as cramped as last year, and flow through seemed easier. They had moved the stages farther into the room, so there was less congestion toward the front of the hall.
  • Less falls this year but the stages were still slippery. The crew was ready with the broom and swept frequently.
  • I did not see any ‘No Camping’ signs, and one would think I would notice 😉 This made it a camping free-for-all. We had mapped out an area with coats, the dress bag and a zuca and someone camped in the middle… smh
  • Parking was $10 this year.

Side Bar: I really wish they could do something about the fumes in the lobby. I think they are from generators from the home show. It makes spending any time in the lobby nauseating.

Venue Score: 7

Judges

2014 Recap

With the Girl Child having 3 dances, and dancing on 3 separate stages, and because PC dancers have 3 judges per stage, none of whom rotated to another stage, I have no complaints on the judging.

I actually thought it was an excellent opportunity for the dancers, performing in front of 9 different judges for the feis. With 9 judges, comments were more well rounded than the typical 2 or 3 judges that you ‘might’ get at a grade level.

2015 Notes

Ditto

Judge Score: 10

Music

2014 Recap

Each stage had its own musician and I did not hear any complaints about music.

2015 Notes

Ditto

Musician Score: 9.5

Food

2014 Recap

Standard convention center food, hamburgers, cheesebugers, pretzels, pizza, wraps and salads, a coffee stand, various drink booths and beer. Food quality was OK but not worth the price. It was about what you expect for a convention center.

2015 Notes

We were actually done early and did not take advantage of concessions.

Food Score: NA

Vendors

2014 Recap

George, the shoe guy, and Betsy, his daughter(who also responds to ‘George’s Daughter’ btw), the feis t-shirt table, wig ladies, a jewelry booth, an Irish wool and linens vendor, and the photographer. You can see all the vendors at the the feis site under Vendors.

2015 Notes

Another ditto. But, GEORGE was back after having been away from us for a while. Very happy to see you George!

Vendor Score: 7.5

Results

2014 Recap

Results are different at Champ level, as some of you know. Results for all dances are completed, top 3 in each dance determined, and then the overall top half from the entire comp are determined. When they are ready, the dancers are gathered and awards presented.

I can understand where it would take time to do this, but timeliness was only one of the issues I felt the results had. It took approximately 1.5 to 2 hours from completion of TGCs last dance to presentation of her awards. I felt that was a little long, granted, I have never tallied a PC comp so that might be normal.

Results were presented in an area on the lower level that would have been fine if comps had been done one at a time. Thing is, they waited until somewhere around 5 comps were ready before presenting the awards.

Picture if you will, 5 comps of dancers with 10 – 20 dancers each, the parents and friends for all those dancers, and dance bags and zucas for some of them, crammed into an area not fit for that many people. It was difficult for dancers to get to the presentation area when called, and for spectators to see, and picture taking was next to impossible. Not planned well at all. I feel simply doing them one comp at a time would have helped tremendously.

2015 Notes

Huge improvement over last year!

  • Time from dance to awards dropped to somewhere between 60 and 90 minutes.
  • They moved the results up to the side of the venue lobby which is a huge area and added a podium. There was plenty of room for dancers and families.
  • CON: There were no chairs which would have been nice for some spectators, and, we were in the lobby where the fumes I mentioned above lingered 🙁

Results Score: 7.5

Feis Flow

2014 Recap

Flow was not bad considering the number of dancers, TGC had three dances on three separate stages, with about 20 dancers in the comp and she was finished in roughly 2.5 hours. Since this is only the second PC feis we have attended, I really do not have a standard to judge it by, but I thought that was pretty good.

2015 Notes

Ditto, right down to the number of dancers. Oh, I have a lot more than 2 PC feiseanna under my belt now.

Feis Flow Score: 8

Scoring

Overall, I thought this was a better feis than last year and would put it in the 7.5 to 8 category.

What Say You?

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Gem City Feis 2014 PC/OC Review/1 Comment/in , , /by

gcfThe Gem City Feis was held on October 11th, 2014 at the Dayton Airport Expo Center in Vandalia, OH (basically attache to the Dayton International Airport, 15 minutes north of Dayton proper).

This is the third review I have done for Gem City, but I have been to the feis numerous times. If you would like to review the previous reviews, see this page.

Venue

As I have said in the past, the Expo Center is a great venue for a feis. Lots of space, nice size stages, nice separation between the stages, etc… My big peeve with this venue is the assigned camping area. If I was to refer to last years review, I said:

…last year I also said “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” and maybe I was a little too subtle. There is a ton of open area that could have been used for camping, but they taped off the same inadequate area this year and people were openly irritated. TAPE OFF A BIGGER CAMPING AREA IN 2014 PLEASE!

Well that went over well… not. Same area as the past few years, too small, too cramped, too frustrating. I won’t ask for a bigger area for 2015 since past attempts have gone SO well, but if someone from the committee reads this, I actually have an idea on how to expand the area.

Next peeve for this year was the temperature. The PC/OC end of the venue was very warm, while the opposite end was almost chilly because they had opened two of the large garage doors on that end of the building.

Lastly, stages. Stage size was great with PC/OC stages being 32 x 32 or bigger, but stage condition was horrible. I saw numerous falls, one resulting in the dancer being carried off the stage and transported by wheel chair a little later. The feis committee mopped at lunch, and occasionally between comps, but it did not seem to help much. Stage 2 actually stopped comps and moved one of the floor panels after numerous dancers fell on it, including the dancer in the wheel chair.

Judges

Typical for Champs, three judges, all attentive and two of the them on our stage were not familiar to me, which was a nice change. The other thing I realized which has not been the norm for TGCs results, was that all three judges scored her evenly. Typically (it seems), TGC will do great with two judges and meh with the third. I always wonder how she can score so differently, but this time that was not in question. All the judges saw the same dance 😉

Music

I did not encounter any issues here. When the stage musician was playing, the other stages music was not a distraction. I did hear that the musician on Stage 2 was erratic with her tempos, but I did not encounter that, and TGC had no problems with the music.

Vendors

Vendors seemed lighter than years past. Balinvilla was there (sans George, but he is doing well according to Betsy), the wig ladies, the feis t-shirt guys, and one other t-shirt guy. No real Irish nick-nacks, no Irish M&Ms… TGC was sad.

Food

Convention Center food, pretzels, pizza, salad and sandwiches. They did have a nice fruit and cheese plate which I thought a nice option. Drinks were also available, coffee, water, soda and beer. I thought prices were high however, $2.50 for a bottle of water and over $5 for a pretzel and soda. The fruit and cheese will set you back $9. My advice, plan ahead. There are options fairly close if you are familiar with the area and easy to find if you are not, so brown bag it 😉

Results/Awards

Gem City does a nice job with the PC/OC results and have an area set off in one corner to do the presentations. The presenter gives plenty of time for pics and makes an extra effort to make sure everyone is done taking pics before she had the dancers bow.

The awards are gems, and all placers get one. TGC got a Prizewinner gem last year and scored a placement gem this year and I think the PC/OC gems are bigger. A little sad that there were no sashes because trying to wear your gem could cause significant bodily harm due to their size.

If there were any negatives about the awards (other than no sashes) it would be the area proximity to Stage 1 made it hard to hear the award announcements when Stage 1 was going at it. Secondly, they had a bunch of lovely pumpkins lined up right in front of the podium and although it looked nice, I think it made it hard for the winners to get up on the podium. Maybe next year, add some space between the pumpkins and the podium.

It took about an hour for results to come out after TGCs comp was done dancing, which is a bit better than average.

Feis Flow

Feis Flow when things were going was not bad, and according to the stage estimator Mrs. WTF used, TGC was right on schedule. The ‘issue’ was the Treble Reels.

Scheduled to start during lunch, they were repeatedly delayed, and at one point they announced that it would be “AT LEAST 20 more minutes” before they started. If I had to guess, lunch on stage 2 started at 12ish and the Treble Reels didn’t go till closer to 130. If anyone has more exact info, please let me know.

Other than that, from my perspective, flow was pretty good.

Scoring

Positives and negatives… venue was great, stages, not so much, awards were nice, flow had its hiccups, vendors were limited, food was pricey. I would place this around 6 or 7, your mileage may vary.

What did you think?

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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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Queen City Feis

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queencityThe 10th Annual Queen City Feis was held Saturday, May 11th, 2013 at the Duke Energy Convention Center in Cincinnati, OH.

Venue – This is the third or fourth feis I have attended at the Duke energy Center, and I like it as a feis venue. There were seven performance stages in one large room and like Buckeye, the stages were spaced out well, but not so far apart that getting back and forth between stages was difficult. Stages 6 and 7 were for OC and PC and were really big. They were in the same room, but sectioned off by a partition. The other 5 stages seemed a bit bigger than what I am use to seeing, and if I figured right, 24 x 24 feet, at least the stage we were on was.

Camping was very adequate but it still amazes me that people cram into smaller areas and camp in the walkways to be near their stage when there is so much room available.

Seating at the stages for viewers was good.

Feis results were posted on a big wall on one end of the room and awards were right next to results lists, all very convenient.

Parking was sufficient in parking garages within a block of the hall, but a bit pricey at $10. Seemed higher than I remember from previous feiseanna, but there was a big pet expo at the Duke Energy Center too, so maybe they jacked it up a bit.

Venue Score: 8.5 

Judges –Judge rotation was really good, my daughter danced three competitive dances and was judged by three different judges. She also did the Treble Reel and was judged by one of the three, but I don’t really count that as a repeat.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Considering how far apart the stages were, each stage had to have its own musician. No music bleed over and I did not see any major stoppages because of music issues.

Musician Score: 10

Food – Big venue concession stand, pretzels, chips, sandwiches, soda etc…, a little variety with paninis, cubans and some others. There some food carts for lemonade, shaved ice and smoothies. There was a coffee counter out in the ‘lobby’ that served Stabucks but was not a Starbucks.

For the food, I thought the prices were really high however. A salad was $8 or higher as were many of the sandwich options. A hot dog, $4, Gatorade $3.50, sodas over $2 and beer over $6. Trying to eat healthy was a bit cost prohibitive. Not impressed.

Food quality was not bad for what we did get however.

Food Score: 4

Vendors – George the shoe guy, a feis tshirt guy, and the ‘wig & stuff’ table, some jewelry, Irish nic nacs, the photographer, etc. There was a nuts and chocolate table that had some good stuff that was not too expensive.

See the complete vendor list.

Vendor Score: 8

Results – Very good, very fast… 15 minutes-ish for the results to hit the wall, maybe a little bit longer, but anything under 30 is not bad compared to some feisanna I have been too. This was particularly good.

I did not notice if there was any electronic posting as the paper copies were out so quick.

Results Score: 9

Feis Flow – Not too bad. My daughter had 3 competitive dances, skipping the TJ, and from start to finish (including waiting for results), she was done in about 6 hours, but there was a lunch break in there. They had six different age comps on the stage, and the comps were big, with most being spit into 2 groups each which slowed things down.

Combine that with the quick results and good venue, I would say the flow of the Queen City Feis was pretty darn good.

Feis Flow Score: 7.5 – a little slow.

And the WTF Rating, – a 8.14. Good judge rotation, good musician score really helped, bit I highly recommended this feis.

What did you think?

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West Virginia Feis

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The West Virginia Feis was held on March 23 and 24th, 2013 at Hyatt Regency Hotel at the Pittsburgh Airport in Pittsburgh, PA. Since the feis was held in PA, I have listed it under both PA and WV reviews.

Please add your feis rating for the West Virginia Feis at the bottom of this review!

NOTE: This review focuses on Saturday only for this two day feis. OC and PC stages and judging therefore are not included in the review.

Venue – This is the second feis I have attended at the Hyatt, and for the last one, I said it ‘wasn’t terrible as a feis venue’, and I still go by that, HOWEVER, I liked it a lot less this time than the last. There were four performance stages, and while I peeked in on the fourth, most of my time was spent in the large ballroom with the three stages. As in my last review for this venue, stages were good size and had sufficient chairs for viewers. The traffic area around the stages was not adequate and moving was difficult, especially since some people congregated on the back wall and in front of the doors into the stage area.

When the hard shoe dances started, the noise carryover between the stages was distracting to me in the viewing seats, but I cannot speak for the dancers on stage.

Camping spots were available in the meeting rooms around the ballroom. Hallways were clearly marked “NO CAMPING” but I saw plenty of people camped right beneath the signs. Camping in the seats around the stages seemed to be at a minimum however, which was nice (at least on stage 3 where we were).

For the last feis I thought the biggest venue ‘issue’ was the concession set up. For this feis, use of the hallways WAS WORSE. This was not helped by the people who did not appear to notice the ‘NO CAMPING’ signs.

Feis results were posted in the hall between the ballroom and the lobby, where the concessions happened to end, which made for an issue of the lunch crowd versus the results crowd. On top of that, there were vendors across from the results, which severely constricted flow. At lunch time that area came to a literal standstill, the rest of the time it was just horrible.

There were also vendors on both sides of the big hallway adjacent to the ballroom, so it was slower traffic through there. The hallway on the end of the ballroom did not really have vendors and might have made a better results area (my opinion only, since I have never set up a feis).

Parking was plentiful but may have involved a bit of a walk depending on when you arrived. There was a way to pull right up to the hotel to drop off dancers and gear though. The feis did pay for parking which was cool and saved me $13.

Venue Score: 5.5 (sorry the results-vendor hall made it worse this time)

Judges – Same as the last time, daughter danced four dances and was judged by three different judges.

Judge Score: 9

Music – Each stage had their own musicians, otherwise pretty standard.

Musician Score: 8

Food – Same as for the last feis, breakfast sandwiches, hot dogs, pretzels, pizza, salad, drinks and sundries… all apparently reasonably priced but we did not eat at the feis so I cannot speak to the quality.

Food Score: 6

Vendors – They had an airbrush artist which I had not seen at a feis before and I thought was a nice addition. Otherwise the standard feis tshirt guy, shoe booth, jewelry, feis and Irish themed apparel, knit goods, the wig stuff, nic-nacs, paddywacks, etc…

Vendor Score: 8.5

Results – Another negative. My daughter danced her first dance at 9 and the results were out at 930, not terrible but not great. After that though, it trended toward terrible taking about 90 minutes for the next 2 results and over an hour for the last (not sure how long since we went out to lunch and came back). A caveat, my daughters comps had nearly 30 dancers.

Results Score: 4

Feis Flow – As for the last feis here, I thought the feis flow was pretty good. There appeared to 5 or 6 dances between each of my daughters so there was time for rest between each although I did see 1 dancer from another age group what appeared to be back to back dances.

From my viewpoint the flow was handled really well and things were kept moving.

Feis Flow Score: 8.5

And the WTF Rating – a 7.07.

What did you think?

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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!

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.