2004Great Lakes Feis

When:	August 15th, 2004
Where:	Lansing Center Lansing, MI
Competitors:	Ges (dancing/vocal) Devonna (dancing) Rebekah (dancing) Rachel (dancing/vocal)
Why We Went:	I had a Trophy to defend.
Previously Reviewed:	2003

ORGANIZATION

Since the feis was the same weekend as Windsor, both feisanna shared musicians and adjudicators.
Feisworx handled registration and tabulation this year.
Extra number cards were provided for the various Arts&Crafts competitions some of Clan Seger had entered.

Did they really have to open registrations in mid-March when the feis was held in mid-August? We didn't end up registering Luke because it had opened so early and we had no idea at the time Registrations finally closed that he would take up the family business in such spectacular fasion.

A-.

Same age group on same stage scheduling all across the feis
There was a perpetual trophy awarded to the Adult Open/Prizewinner dancer who placed the best in all his/her competitions. Scoring was done on the basis of your finish in each Open/PW competition, and used the same points system that is used to score Prelim and Open Champion dancers (first place in each competition was awarded 100 points, second place 75, third place 67, etc.).

The one drawback to the Adult Perpetual Trophy competition was that if you were male and in adult Open/Prizewinner, you either had to learn a slip jig (a dance males are normally discouraged from doing in competition in the Midwest) or spot the rest of your competition 100 points
No set dance for Adult Open/Prizewinner. If they weren't going to allow non-trad set like they did last year, this at least could have been a trad set (which Detroit does). Of course, the way my day had been going to that point, it was probably a "What Went Right."

A-.

The floor plan made much better use of the facility than last year. The whole exhibition hall from last year was in use, instead of rendering half of it dead space like last year.
Nice, big stages -- provided you weren't dancing three at a time (more on that below)
Each stage had a table for the stage monitor. You knew exactly where to check in as a competitor, and the monitors had someplace to put their paperwork other than hands or floor. Why don't more feisanna do this?
Tape was used to try to indicate traffic paths around the floor and designated camping areas. Unfortunately, they didn't have enough of it, because at some stages you either had to walk a long distance or step over other people's stuff just to get to check-in. We don't like stepping over other people's stuff.
The vendors area wasn't in the middle of the site like last year. This is a "What Went Right" for dance parent's pocketbooks :-)

Devonna still noticed that the janitors had an obsession with mopping the womens rooms on an hourly basis. This can't be safe, especially in hard shoes
Even though there was a Boy's changing room, it was located about as far as you could put it from the only entrance that allowed you re-entry and still be under the same roof as the feis site.
Even though there was more in the way of food this year, its safety was questionable. One of the sandwiches we got at the food vendor gave Devonna food poisioning, which made her afternoon rather interesting. I think we're bringing in our own food next year.
The only Men's room that seemed available to the main room had the exact same problem that the Boy's changing room mentioned previously -- it was located very far away from the only room entrance that allowed re-entry.

The Adult Perpetual Trophy announcement was made over the site PA at the end of the day.
The committee did a good thing in staggering the lunch break between the stages. Had all those people hit the food lines at the same time, there would have been a lot of frustration.
Even though there weren't signs at the Awards table, they were set up in front of their particular results sheets (Beginner, Advanced Beginner, etc.). After you had looked at your results, you were in the area you needed to be to pick up any awards you won.
The Registration Desk provided pins for wearing your competitor number.
The door guards were much more lenient about allowing food in from the food lines.

While there was a preregistration, you had to be staying downtown to get to it.
The feis committee was rather inflexible about a mixup involving our daughter's bread and visual arts competitions. Each had been accidentally entered in the other's competition, and they wouldn't let us fix it the day of the feis.
Devonna kept getting challenged on re-entering the exhibit hall. Don't people know what dance dresses and a competitor number mean anymore?
Since the facility floor is concrete, the committee might want to consider having boxes of resin available at all stages next year.
Children below the age of 13 were made to dance three at a time in competition. It wasn't right last year, it's not right this year, and it won't ever be right. Even if kids that age could handle sharing the stage with two other dancers that probably have wildly-different choreography (most can't, from the two other times I've seen feisanna attemt this), their stages did not meet the IDTANA-mandated specification for dancing three at a time.