Oireachtas

How the system Works if your new to oireachtas...

(England)

Welcome to my section on the oireachtas which some may find interesting, at least the one new to the oireachtas will tee he. 

Boys/Girls

Alright there mate! Here we go....

When you first go to your oireachtas you will enter the doors and will see many girls and boys about dancing with there dance teachers practicing so you will know your in the right place. The first thing you must do is check out the timetable and check the time you are set to dance on the stage at. Most of the time dancers will know what time they will be dancing as your dance teacher will tell you, but its best to double check because this has happened before as a dancer went to the competition and was late to dance and disqualified. Now you know the time your dancing at you must sign in at the sign in table and get your number. They will then check off your name and let the people running the oireachtas know that you are there. 

Before you go up on stage....

Go find your dance teacher so you can practice although if he/she's not there don't worry about it because you can always find a dancer about you know from your dance class or you could go through your paces yourself. Make sure you go through everything your dance teacher told you to remember so you don't forget it when you go up on stage.

The call up....

Its time to be called up so you must got to the stage entrance and make sure your all neat and tidy. They will organize you backstage into 3's and 2's depending on the size of the stage. Most of the time it will be 2's due to the size of people and how everyone's steps seem to lead them into each other.

The Recall....

Now its time for the recall. The people organizing the oireachtas will now use a computer to organize the results after you have danced. The amount of kids in your age group will determine how many will be recalled. They normally recall about half but if your in a small age group will about 5 or 8 in it they should recall everyone so you will need to dance your set dance. If there was much more in your age group they will have a cut off mark which will normally be around the middle or a third.

After the set dance....

The results will be processed and will be shown on a big screen, here is an example of this....

Depending on what you got , you will now be asked to go to the presentation on stage of the awards. I here the podium's are pretty kewl to stand on.

Update:

A lot of newbie's to the dancing circle when they went to there first open feis or oireachtas they would have been confused when buying results. Well your total marks are usually added up. Once they are added up they are sorted into placing. The placing gives you your grid mark. 1st is 100 2nd is 75 3rd is 65 and it goes down. The grid marks are added together for your final place. This is also the decider whether you get a recall or not. Some people don't get grid marks. It does not mean you weren't a good dancer it just means that you didn't get a high enough place to get a grid point.