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Columbus Feis 2013

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The 33rd annual Columbus Feis was held on August 3rd, 2013 at the Dublin Coffman High School in Dublin, Ohio.

Editors Note: This feis is run in conjunction with, and across the street from the Dublin Irish Fest, but alas, I did not make it to that this year.

Venue – This is the second time I have done the Columbus Feis at the high school, the first being a few years ago before I started posting feis reviews, and to be honest, its not one of my favorite venues.

There were 10 stages at the feis, split into 4 different areas of the high school. 4 stages in one gym, 4 in another gym, the PC stage in the cafeteria and the OC stage in the Performing Arts Center (aka the auditorium). The areas were wide-spread and could be a few minutes from each other if you happened to have dancers on several stages. Travel was complicated because of having to travel through crowded school hallways.

Stage size was OK, with the stages in the 2 gyms (numbered 1 – 8) being about 20 x 24. Actually, there were two large platforms, 20 x 48 in each gym, with each split, forming two stages, and having the dancers dance back to back. There was a few feet between the two large platforms where a musician sat, playing for all 4 stages. Although the stages were ok size, the whole setup seemed very cramped, especially since some of the comps were huge. The PC stage (#9) was in the cafeteria, and I think it was 24 x 24, but seemed kind of crammed into the end of the room. The OC stage was literally an auditorium stage, and was plenty big.

I only saw one fall, and I did not see any floor cleanup or mopping during the day, but I was not in a stage area during the lunch hour, so it may have occurred.

Chairs seemed adequate, with one gym area using the school bleachers. To be honest I was only in the other gym briefly, and it was crowded, and I did not notice the seating there. The PC stage probably needed more chairs because there was lots of standing viewers, but I don’t believe there was adequate room to put many more. The OC stage was fine seating wise.

Camping was in the cafeteria, in the student locker area, and in the hallways, with a little in the gyms on the sides of, and in, the bleachers.

Results and awards were in the hallway off the cafeteria where the student lockers were. It was cramped and hard to maneuver, and campers had pretty much blocked access from the sides so flow to/past the results had restricted flow.

Due to the Irish Fest, which is across the street from the high school, parking was painful. They had only one way in and out of the school parking lot and it was full by 845 when we arrived. I dropped the family off at the door and parked somewhere between 1/4 and 1/2 mile away. There was no charge for parking however.

Vendors were in the hallway between areas, and even though the hallway was large, having vendors on both sides really cramped the flow.

The last note about the venue was the ‘climate’. It was really hot in the entire venue in the morning. I heard many complaints and did my fair share of perspiring. I would say by 11 they had it more under control, but the first few hours it was miserable.

Put all that together and I think….

Venue Score: 5  

Judges – The girl child danced 3 times and was judged by 3 different judges. Can’t ask for better that that.

Judge Score: 10

Music – Stages 9 and 10 each had their own musicians, but stages 1 x 4, and 5 x 8 only had one musician for each of the 4 stages. The lack of stage-worthy areas in the venue probably causes the need to have those stages share their musicians, but it caused lots of delays and I saw stages come to complete halts numerous times. Basically, all the stages in the entire gym would have to have all their age comps finish all their reels (for example), before all the stages could start on the next dance. You see where I am going here.

Musician Score: 4

Food – There were a few vendor tables that had easy to grab and eat food like bananas, grapes, bagels, donuts, drinks etc… all reasonably priced. When lunch hit, other than the snack tables, there was one hamburger/hot dog/sandwich vendor, and people waited because the food ran out quickly. It wasn’t terrible though, and the prices were reasonable.

Food Score: 7.5

Vendors –  2 shoe vendors, a jewelry table, the tshirt guy, the ribbon lady, and lots of hair stuff. Just a small showing really. There was an Irish Festival going across the street however, but I did not make it to that.

Vendor Score: 7 

Results – From the end of the dance to being posted on the wall I would say it took about 30 – 45 minutes. Not as good as others I have seen. There was also one dance where the judge and mislabeled the score sheet, and had I not asked about the status of that dance, it may still not be up on the wall. That result was closer to 90 minutes to get.

Columbus is a FeisWorx feis but I did not think to check results online during the day.

Awards were in a room right in the results hallway, and were very convenient to the results. They awards staff was ‘wired’ into the results room and were able to pull up the dancers number on laptops to see all the dancers results. That was done better than most feiseanna.

If the awards had not been wired, the slower turnaround time would have brought this score down.

Results Score: 7.5

Feis Flow – Not too bad. We started at 11ish and had the last dance at around 2. Huge comps and limited musicians slowed things down a lot. They grouped the dance types together to take advantage of fewer musicians, and kept the numbers of age groups on each stage fairly small which helped. A shorter lunch, which lasted a little over an hour, may have helped too.

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 – 7.25  (which really benefited from the judge score, otherwise I would not have had it this high)

And the WTF Rating – a 6.92

What did you think?

[poll id=”11″]

Michigan (Muskegon) Feis Review

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Michigan Feis was held on September 15, 2012 at Muskegon Catholic Central High School, Muskegon, MI.

Venue – Although spread out a little, the Muskegon Catholic Central High School was a pretty good feis venue.

Four stages spread throughout the school provided plenty of room for dancers and viewers. I spent most of my time in the gym where stages 3 and 4 were, and they were good size with lots of room between. There seemed to be plenty of seating in the bleachers for parents and friends. Another of the stages was in the auditorium and was well lit and had plenty of seating. Afraid I did not look at the 4th stage.

Camping spots were limited but everyone seemed to find a spot and there was a ‘less crowded’ feel to the venue then other recent ones.

Parking was ok, but it filled up quickly and things got a little tight. We were in at 930 and found a spot on the outer edges. I assume as the early crowd started rolling out, more and more spots opened up a little later in the morning.

One WTF Fan (well, reader anyway) who I saw at the feis did comment about limited bathrooms, and I said I would mention it. There were some close to the stage we were on, so I had no complaints.

Venue Score: 8

Judges – My daughter danced four dances and was judged by two different judges, one for her first three dances. Sorry, that is a poor rotation.

I mentioned it to feis volunteers and it got back to the feis coordinator immediately and she was very proactive getting it resolved asap, but I still feel the rotation was not well planned. The judges on the stage we were on rotated once in the morning session, and it was before we got to the stage, so I would have to say many girls were judged by the same judge for all their dances. Between me mentioning it, and the lunch break, we did get a different judge for the last dance.

Judge Score: 3

Music – Each stage had their own musicians, always good. Our stage musician did take several breaks. Since I have become use to those huge bladder judges the last few feises, who hardly take breaks,  I have to knock the score down a little for this one.

Musician Score: 8

Food – Cafeteria food, pizza, sandwiches, donuts, candy, soda, etc… all reasonably priced. My son commented that the pizza didn’t look good but tasted great, so, no complaints. Could have used a little more variety (especially since you had an Irish Festival just down the street… hint, hint).

Food Score: 7.5

Vendors – A feis tshirt guy, and George the shoe guy… always there. They also had a few other vendors, nothing awesome. I have to say though, with all the vendors at the Music Festival, having any of them show up at the feis is probably most difficult.

Vendor Score: 7

Results – Well done, but with a twist. They were posted a bit slowly, but it seemed that the awards table had them much faster. DD placed in an event and after it was posted, she went to get the award, and they gave her another award for a dance she placed in only minutes earlier, whose results had not been posted yet. That was pretty quick.

The other big kudo is that they passed out summarized sheets with all results, and judges comments, shortly after the dancers last dance. I very seldom see that.

Overall great, but not near perfect because of the slower postings.

Results Score: 9

Feis Flow – I thought this feis was well run. They kept the age group dances fairly close together, which unfortunately impacted on judging a little (see slow rotation note), and they had a lunch break that went a bit long, but otherwise, great job.

Feis Flow Score: 9

And the WTF Rating – not bad with a WTF Rating is 7.36.

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.