2005 Texas State Championship and Feis

When:	March 4-5, 2005
Where:	Sheraton Grand Dallas/Fort Worth Airport Irving, TX
Competitors:	Ges (dancing) Devonna (dancing/poetry) Rebekah (dancing) Rachel (dancing/vocal) Luke (dancing)
Why We Went:	Giving Rebekah another chance to get a dance out of Novice before we start the feisanna that can qualify her for the Midwest Oireachtas.
Previously Reviewed:	2002

ORGANIZATION

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Feisworx did their usual competent job with registration and tabulation.
The syllabus is virtually identical to the one we saw for Houston at the beginning of the year. It's also identical to ones in use in Colorado and Louisiana where the majority of the feis committee is composed of parents of McTeggart school dancers.

WHAT WENT WRONG

There were major discrepancies with the stage schedule published on their website and program and the information put on competitor cards by Feisworx. While there was an announcement at the beginning of the day that the correct data was on the competitor cards, no effort was made to distribute revised stage schedules to everyone arriving that morning. If we had a schedule in hand, Devonna and I would have known that our Treble Jig was going to happen almost immediately after our Single Jig. We didn't, and we both missed a dance competition for the first time in our careers. Some of this was our fault for not keeping track of our stage and concentrating instead on watching Luke's Single Jig and getting lunch for our children.
The committee announced throughout the day that per NAFC rules no photography of any type would be tolerated at the feis. Devonna still hasn't found that wording in the NAFC standard syllabus after months of searching. I realize that feisanna have the right to make their own policies regarding certain things, but they shouldn't be hiding behind an interpretation of NAFC rules that doesn't exist to do so.
On a related note, threatening to confiscate the camera of anyone violating their "No Photography" policy was a little over the top.

GRADE

C+. While still much better than three years ago, this committee's continuing inability to provide an accurate stage schedule in advance of the feis is disturbing.

SCHEDULING

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Music competitions were held the night before the dance competitions.
Vocalists were broken out into their own category for Music competitions
Mass was scheduled for after the feis
To a first approximation, same-stage scheduling was used. There was some movement of competitions between adjacent stages to try and balance the load out.
Championship-level competitions were scheduled for after non-champs completed. This helped to keep the site less crowded than it could have been, but should have been followed for other levels of dancers as I am about to mention below.
Stages A-C were reserved for dancers under 12, while D-F handled competitors 12 and over. While D-F completed earlier than A-C (a reversal from 3 years ago), the age distribution meant that the end times were much closer together this year than in 2002.
Non-championship dancers were scheduled to be done at 1:30. They were all done by 1:15.

WHAT WENT WRONG

They could still use a little bit of work on their age group balancing. The Adult competition (anywhere on stages D-F) suffered from frequent breaks to keep all three stages in that ballroom in sync.
No effort was made to split the Music and Vocal competitions by age on the feis entry. It appeared the committee waited for all the entries to come in before deciding to split the competitions.
No effort was made to split the Language competition by age at all. Three kids had to compete with the adults who had entered.
One of the biggest drawbacks with the standard McTeggart feis syllabus is that it only has two levels of adult competition. The numbers in the combined Novice/Open Adult comps would have easily allowed a split into a three-level competition.
Beginners were scheduled with the rest of the non-champion dancers. Considering how small the feis facility is in relation to the number of dancers and spectators in attendance, they should seriously consider running all the Beginners together after Figures.

GRADE

FACILITIES

WHAT WENT RIGHT

The main ballroom of the Sheraton was split into two big rooms with three stages each. One musician played for each room.
A panel was left off either end of the partition dividing the main ballroom. You didn't have to exit the ballroom to get from one side to the other.
The dividing line between the stages was done in black duct tape. You and the adjudicator knew exactly how much room you had.
For the most part, the ballrooms were kept very cool. I really appreciated this, since I tend to sweat a lot when I dance.
The hotel provided aggressive water service throughout the day
The hotel also provided a good, decently priced lunch spread that were more than just feis fare.
The hotel public access TV channel was very good about showing what was scheduled for the feis, and when.
NOW and NEXT signage for each stage, while not of the fantastically high-tech quality that Houston provided, was easily visible throughout each ballroom.
There may not have been a lot of vendors, but it was well-stocked and intelligently laid-out in the large space in front of the primary ballroom.

WHAT WENT WRONG

No breakfast buffet
Less room was provided for Results/Awards in the secondary ballroom than three years ago.
To the best of our observation and knowledge, no effort was made to provide practice space for dancers the night before. Stage and ballroom setup were still in progress after the Music competitions had let out.
Congestion made it difficult to get from one ballroom to the other early in the day, even with opening a partition at either end. See "Scheduling" above for one way to mitigate it.
Still no coatracks for hanging either coats or dress bags
There was only one pair of restrooms convenient to the ballrooms
Food selection was pretty much limited to the hotel buffets or the on-site restaraunts. Given the speed at which the day progressed, there wasn't that much time to go off-site for food. The rather large airport immediately next to the Sheraton sort of precluded any fast-food places being nearby even if there had been time.
To get to your seats as a competitor, you often had to walk over the cords running around the ballroom's musician. They could have set them up better -- or at least blocked them off better from their surroundings.

GRADE

OPERATIONS

WHAT WENT RIGHT

Stage Monitors were friendly and courteous all day -- especially when caught between medical neccessity and an adjudicator's demands.
An announcer in each ballroom alerted everyone over the room PA about what was happening next in each room

WHAT WENT WRONG

It wasn't obvious until we were told at Preregistration that Devonna and Rachel's packets had to be picked up over at the Music/Poetry competitor's line.
Note to all Feis committees with Music competitions: The first instinct of a typical feis-goer confronted with a closed door saying "Music Competitions In Progress" is to open it, almost always in the middle of someone's performance. That's why you're supposed to post a stage monitor outside the door. With the continual traffic in and out of the Music room on Friday night, I don't know why they even bothered to close the door.
Related note: the first instinct of any young child in a Music competition room while a competition is in progress is to leave. That's why you post a second stage monitor INSIDE the door.
No adjudicator rotation until hardshoes
The results of Rebekah's reel competition were lost for most of the day.

GRADE

B-