| When: | May 8th, 2004 |
|---|---|
| Where: | Cincinnati Convention Center Cincinnati, OH |
| Competitors: |
Ges (dancing) Devonna (dancing/soda bread) Rebekah (dancing/soda bread) |
| Why We Went: | It was only one hour's drive from Clan Seger World HQ, which meant we didn't have to stay in the feis city overnight. We also didn't have an inaugaral feis on the schedule yet :-) |
| Previously Reviewed: |
ORGANIZATION
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Registrations were handled online by eFeis
- In addition to online registrations, the committee reserved two hundred or so entries to be filled only by people that could not register online. Given how quickly Registration capped out online, that was a Very Good Idea™
- I got the distinct impression that a lot of the people who work on the Cincinnati Feis committee also worked similar positions for this feis. There did not seem to be the rancor and competition one usually finds between multiple feis committees in a single city. If any of you on either Cincinnati committee are reading this and know better, please try not to laugh too loud :-)
- All of us (especially our pig-collecting daughter Rachel) loved the Celtic Flying Pig motif used for feis stationery, medals, etc. We also liked that they took up some space in the program to explain the signifigance of flying pigs in Cincinnati for the non-locals.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- The only registration problem I had was a side effect of how eFeis attempted to deal with the avalanche of entries the minute the feis opened, and most definitely not the fault of the committee.
- A somewhat limited selection of vendors, which in retrospect shouldn't be too surprising for a new feis.
GRADE
A.
SCHEDULING
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- Same age group/same stage scheduling
- Steps danced in order (Reel, Jig, etc). Within each step, Advanced Beginners danced first, then Novice, then Open/Prizewinner. Where possible, the competitions were kept in the same order within each step.
- Adult Beginners were treated as Advanced Beginners for purposes of scheduling.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- Figures went first, which by long-standing policy on this site is a What Went Wrong. There were a few instances (none of which directly affected Clan Seger) where the Parent-Child competition was missed because the child was in a different figure.
- No music competitions. This shouldn't really be held against them, because this is their first year and they had a lot to do already without worrying about another non-dancing competition.
GRADE
A.
FACILITIES
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- The stage layout in the Main Ballroom area seemed to allow rapid movement from one end to the other. Well, rapid as compared to a typical Midwest Feis...
- Designated camping areas in all the halls surrounding the ballrooms. They appeared to be well-used, too.
- The girl's dressing room was surprisingly well-placed in relation to the ballroom.
- A nice, roomy Results/Awards room
- There was actually some space outside of the Main Ballroom where you could practice your steps beforehand without injuring onlookers.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- Some camping took place in some of the narrower halls that had been marked "No Camping".
- There were a limited number of chairs around each of the stages in the Main Ballroom.
- Air conditioning wasn't quite up to the load placed on it that day. One area would be really cold, while only a few feet over, it would be much hotter.
- The Championship stage was quite a distance away from the rest of the feis.
- Only one food vendor was available within the facility, and it was quite a walk away from the main ballroom
- They need to do a better job of signing where restrooms are. Many people didn't realize there were restrooms right across from the ballrooms, and instead used the ones next to the Changing Rooms.
- The Men's room in the vicinity of the Girls Changing Room was used as a boy's changing room in the morning, much to the discomfort of anyone who needed it for its original designed intent.
- I had an unconfirmed report that that particular Men's Room later in the day morphed into a Women's Room. If true, they might want to read what I had to say about Indianapolis doing this last year.
- The rack for displaying solo dresses for sale was kind of in an out-of-the way place.
GRADE
B.
OPERATIONS
WHAT WENT RIGHT
- The Adult Open Treble Jig was moved to a nearby stage so it could be run at the same time as the Adult Novice Treble Jig. This allowed the traditional speed competitions to be finished earlier, so that the slow-speed kid comps could be started sooner.
- They seemed to do a good job of load balancing toward the end of the day.
- For the number of people who had registered, the feis got done at a very reasonable time that afternoon.
WHAT WENT WRONG
- I was taken aback by the stage monitor for what would have been Rachel's stage asking me why I was telling her that Rachel wouldn't be able to dance that day. I got the sense other feis parents may have already frazzled her by then.
GRADE
A. . There's not a whole lot to grade when your pre-feis organization has dealt with all the things you typically have to improvise around on feis day.