| When: | January 16-17, 2004 |
|---|---|
| Where: | Doubletree Hotel New Orleans, LA |
| Competitors: |
Ges (dancing/vocal) Devonna (dancing/soda bread/photography) Rebekah (dancing) Rachel (dancing/vocal) |
| Why We Went: | New Orleans in January. Adult Treble Reel. Grade exams. Adult Treble Reel. Workshops. Adult Treble Reel. French Quarter. Adult Treble Reel. Any questions? |
| Previously Reviewed: |
ORGANIZATION
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- eFeis was used for registration
- Quick email turnaround. Not only that, they told us who to email if they couldn't immediately answer our questions.
- Results were emailed to us and our instructors within two days of our returning.
- A lot of vendors
WHAT WENT WRONG
- The committee, if they use this location for next year, could do some more work on mapping where outlying parking lots around the hotel were located, along with their prices. They could also lean on the hotel to make sure their valets know this information as well.
- I thought they could have been a little more timely than the week before in releasing information pertaining to grade exams.
- Only four adjudicators were retained for this feis by their committee. This meant some rather, um, creative scheduling was necessary to get Prelims and Championship comps started at mid-day, which will be described in more detail below
GRADE
A.
SCHEDULING
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Adult Treble Reel. 'Nuff said.
- Grade exams were offered Sunday morning to those interested in taking them.
- Post-feis workshops were offered on Sunday for various instruments, youth dancing, and Adult Treble Reel. There was even a talk on feis organizations offered by an NAFC officer, complete with a Q&A session afterwards.
- Even with people having to go everywhere (more below), all stages had cleared Treble Jigs by 12:30
WHAT WENT WRONG
- Dancers were changing stages all day to get from competition to competition. This was made worse by the layout the feis committee had chosen (more on this below).
- It's difficult to know how to score this next point, because I can understand exactly why they did it. In order to free up three adjudicators to start championship dancing, all hornpipes and traditional sets were moved down to one of the second-floor stages.
- While the Family Ceili competition (not to be confused with Parent/Child) was a cute idea, its classification as a non-dancing competition mystified us.
GRADE
B-. . Devonna thought my initial assessment of C+ was a bit harsh, since the crowd situation got better as the day progressed.
FACILITIES
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- The white translucent mat rolled across the stages on the 16th floor provided excellent traction all day, and actually didn't deaden the sound of our hard shoes.
- The combination results/awards room was actually big enough to handle the load asked of it.
- The hotel was located just off the French Quarter and River district, which left people well within walking distance of most of New Orleans' major tourist attractions.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- The stage flooring for one of the two second-floor stages was parquet.
- Two of the four stages on the second floor. The other two were on the sixteenth floor. And there were only four elevators and a fire stair connecting them.
- The only place available to get a quick bite to eat closed early, with nothing else available to take up the slack.
GRADE
C.
OPERATIONS
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Rather than a traditional opening ceremony, a Mardi Gras-style prarde -- in costume -- was run that wound its way among all the stages, dropping the appropriate adjudicators and musicians at each as it went. It was entertaining to see some of the heavy hitters of the North American Irish Dance world in this type of setting.
- Less than 400 dancers were registered. This more than anything saved them from the potential catastrophe that could have resulted from shotgun-scheduling competitions on stages separated by 14 floors.
- Hard breaks were enforced after each step was completed on each stage to allow people time to get to the stage they needed. They kind of stumbled onto this, which may have contributed to the speed in which all dances through Treble Jig were completed. Some parents we saw were grumbling about this without realizing that this was preventing a feis-wide train wreck from occurring.
- The adjudicator for the hornpipe stage had the monitor shuffle the order of competitions so adults could do their traditional set competitions immediately after our hornpipes. This allowed the adults not doing a treble reel to be done for the day and clear the room for the remaining competitors.
- Rachel and I found the music adjudicator very helpful in his comments post-competition and laid-back overall.
- The committee came and found us so we could dance our Family Ceili competition. We were all impressed.
- On a similar note, one of the stage monitors upstairs recognized me as Rebekah's father and called me over to see if she was going to dance her single jig.
- On an even more similar note, Rachel ended up missing her Treble Jig when I had her waiting at the wrong stage downstairs. The committee hunted down the competition record, an adjudicator, and were able to have her dance it by herself.
- I will never, ever complain about the size of Nashville's trophies again. The perpetual trophies handed out at the end of Saturday night were massive constructs of wood and crystal. Forget dropping pens and watching them orbit -- these trophies could bend light in their vicinity.
- The party atmosphere before the award ceremony resembled Mardi Gras, and was a neat touch between the Treble Reels and the Awards Ceremony. I for one came away from it with a newfound respect for the pitching abilities of some Southern Region TCRGs :-)
- The non-dancing competitions received extra things with their awards, such as little stuffed animals or china dolls.
- At the end of the day, the committee chairwoman asked the attendees for feedback on how the feis did and/or could be made better.
- On Sunday, we were called by the committee in our hotel room to be informed of where and when the grade exams were going to start
WHAT WENT WRONG
- I overheard a lot of complaints on Saturday night that only first place was awarded in each treble reel competition. I understand that things were abbreviated so people could get out into the French Quarter that night, but still...
- There were numerous instances of competitions not getting posted in the Results room for hours after they had been run. It got so bad at one point that the committee kicked everyone out of the room and closed it for 15 minutes to get things sorted out. After they did that, things did seem to flow smoother.
- There was a mixup concerning some of Devonna's non-dancing competitions that never got posted in the awards room, so we were unable to pick up those awards before we left for home. To the committee's credit, they rectified this situation as soon as they were able to.
- More information about the post-feis Ceili, including a map to the pub it was held at, would be a good thing. This may have already been in existence, but we didn't see it.
GRADE
A-.