The First Masterson Feis
Huntingdon 9th & 10th June 2001

(parts of this report have been reproduced in Irish Dancing magazine Sept 2001)

Planning a feis is a major challenge for the most accomplished organisers, so what would make a teacher, even one as well respected and experienced as Stephen Masterson take up the challenge?

There's only one way to find out, so I asked him!

"For quite some time I have had it in mind to run a feis in the area, mainly because we are so far away from most of the other regular feis. It takes about an hour and a half to get to most Midlands feis, and the same for the Southern ones. This means that many of my dancers, particularly the Beginners and Primary grades just never get to go."

That's all well and good for the Masterson school dancers, but for any feis to be successful it also has to bring dancers from all across the country to dance. Fortunately Stephen's personal reputation was sufficient for most schools to give the feis a try and the dancers came from far and wide. Numbers for nearly all of the competitions were about the level that would normally be expected, although GCSE exams did reduce one of the older groups slightly.

But was the feis an experience that they'll want to repeat?
Read on to find out!

We were cheerily greeted by a man in the large car park, still smiling despite standing under an umbrella in the rain. This friendly atmosphere continued inside, and was probably the most noticeable thing about the feis throughout the day.
This was in no small part due to the way the syllabus had been timetabled, and also the choice of venue.
The Masterson feis was spread over two days, which was a brave step when there was no way of knowing how many would attend. It certainly proved to be the right thing to do though. By making use of three halls and five stages and leaving plenty of time between each age or grade the whole event seemed much less frantic than is sometimes the case.
Most of the competitions ran roughly on time and the next competitors were only just arriving as the previous dancers completed their event. This gave a general impression that everything was running smoothly, though no doubt people were working tirelessly in the background to achieve this.
In fact on both days the whole day only over ran by less than an hour, and we all know how difficult that is to achieve!
It certainly eased the pressure on every one so that people could just concentrate on the dancing. It is easy to understand how tired people can get when they have to wait around in cramped halls when things do not run to schedule for whatever reason. Without that sort of added pressure the spectators were themselves more friendly and supportive than usual, and that's never a bad thing to achieve.

Another welcome time saver was the use of the computerised Championship scoring system from FeisMark. With marks being available within minutes, both for the recall and the final results, there was very little waiting around for anybody. (for our report on FeisMark see here) All these things added together made for a very enjoyable experience for the dancers and their long suffering parents.

At the end of the day on the Sunday I asked Stephen Masterson if he was happy that things had gone well, and if he would change anything for the next time.

"I am very pleased with the amount of competitors that came, and that the competitions were so enjoyable. I have to say a big thank you to all of the parents who have helped out as they have really done a fantastic job, and I couldn't have managed without their support. The one thing I would like to change is to not over run by so much next time, as I personally feel that an hour is too long."

I have to say that if that is his only complaint then he really has little to worry about. A word of caution, however, as there is one problem that he could face next year. Everybody that came this year will certainly be there again and once word gets out that the feis was such an enjoyable experience, everybody that missed it this time will make a point of being there as well.

It might even need to be extended to cover the whole week!

So we'll see you next year Stephen, you've got a hard act to follow!