Nation's Capital Feis

WHAT WENT RIGHT

WHAT WENT WRONG

• There were not only few vendors, it was difficult to figure out where they were being hidden.
• On a slightly related note, no one on the committee seemed to know where the Awards area was located. We must have been all over the facility before finding it in front of the hotel main entrance.
• The biggest reason these last two items were scored against Organization was that there was no map of the feis site anywhere -- not in the program, not on a wall, nowhere.

GRADE

WHAT WENT RIGHT

• Part of the reason I had insisted that my children never again compete at this feis was the totally random way in which competitions were scheduled throughout the facility three years ago. I needn't have worried this time around, for the committee adopted a method of competition scheduling popular in the Southern Region, and best practiced by Charlotte Rince na h'Eireann. Only one level of youth compettiion (Beginner, Advanced Beginner, etc) was scheduled at a time, which limited the number of people who had to be down at the stages at any given time.
• As a consequence of religiously holding to their new schedule, the feis finished in mid-afternoon.
• The music competition was run the night before the feis. Again, another Southern Region tradition that took hold here.

WHAT WENT WRONG

• The only bad consequence of their scheduling method is a common one that only affects split-level dancers, in that sometimes their dances will be done out of order.
• For no adequately-explainable reason, all Adult Treble Reels were originally scheduled between Slip Jigs and Single Jigs. The conversation I had with the committemember in order to get this changed to something resembling every other feis in North America... well, I should have recorded it and linked to the MP3. It has to be heard to be believed. The person actually believed it was normal for competitors to repeatedly change shoes throughout the day, and so adults should have to do the same. I must have been talking to a person who hadn't been to many feisanna, because I refuse to believe an entire feis committee in this day and age could be that delusional.
• The Adult 2-hand on the stage in the second floor lobby was scheduled to go at the same time as the Adult 3-hand in the Bar. No one on this committee thought to check how many adults doing the 3-hand were also doing the 2-hand until both competitions tried to start at the same time. The monitors on each stage couldn't even agree between themselves on which one should run first.

GRADE

WHAT WENT RIGHT

• All stages were available for practicing the night before.

WHAT WENT WRONG

• The other reason we didn't allow our children to dance here was because we danced in the same place of the feis site we were in three years ago -- the bar on the second level. Given the number of elevators at this facility, this would have made keeping track of dancers down in the Main Ballroom difficult at best and nightmarish at worst.
• While the hotel provided a lot of pitchers at the beginning of the day up on the adult stage, little if any effort was made to replenish them throughout the morning.
• The location of the Results area resulted in a lot of traffic.

GRADE

WHAT WENT RIGHT

WHAT WENT WRONG

• Still seemed like there were no radios for the committee members to keep in touch with each other.
• While the Jack & Jill competition for Adults was fun, it would have been even more hilarious if the committee had actually randomly chosen each person's position as the syllabus said it would. Of course, had I ended up in a female position I'd be griping about that right now... :-)
• No one had notified the Adult stage monitors of my meeting with the Feis committee the previous night to clear up the scheduling problem with the Adult Treble Reel. Fortunately, I had anticipated this problem.
• The results that were emailed back to us bore little resemblance to the awards which we thought we had been given. Several other dancers writing on adult message boards had similar problems. As of this writing, Devonna still hasn't been issued a medal that she should have been awarded.
• The problems with the Adult Treble Reel didn't stop with its location on the schedule. It was finally run as a competition step by the adjudicator because she said that's how it was listed in the syllabus. You can't tell me this adjudicator didn't know how a Treble Reel competition is normally run. The syllabus needs to be rewritten so that these competitions are listed as a special competition.
• When we got our wristbands, we had been issued spectator bands while our children were issued competitor bands -- exactly the opposite of who was doing what. Rather than bother the committee to get this changed, we accepted it since it still meant we could get into the site. One extremely rude older man on the committee found this quite unacceptable as we were searching for the Awards table. For a moment, we were afraid he was going to get violent on us solely because we had the wrong color of wristband and he was absolutely refusing to listen to our explanation of something which didn't really matter. Our children were also very upset at the way he was treating us. His behavior has definitely influenced any future decision to attend again -- and, if allowed to continue, will be a grave disservice to future editions of this feis.

GRADE