COMPETITION DETAIL

AWESOME!

I am new to all of this and have joined this site to learn more about my daughter’s passion. Our studio attended your Minneapolis event a few weeks back. I have been to a lot of competitions these last 3 years and this was without a doubt one of the best experiences I have had. The venue was huge, the staff was so helpful, and they actually used the full range of scores unlike the majority of other companies. My daughter received a high gold and was so excited because they gave out golds as well. Using the full scoring system is rare and my daughter is now so encouraged because she knows that she’s working her way up to that platinum placement. They also had a very nice lighting set up that I have never seen anywhere else. Thanks Midwest Starz for being so encouraging to my little dancer, we will definitely be coming back next year!

I decided to try this competition out this year and I am so glad I did! We are a very small studio and often get overlooked at most competitions, but at Starz they make every studio and dancer feel important and special. My students were mainly at the novice level and were so nervous, but they each came off the stage beaming with excitement because the judges were all so enthusiastic during her performance! The backstage manager was so kind, and it was obvious how much all of the workers cared about the kids. For the awards they rolled out a red carpet, got to dance with the judges, and I was very impressed with the quality of certificates, medals, trophies, and plaques. Also each dancer received their own special lighting, and I was so impressed by the production level. I cannot thank you enough for such a great first experience, my kids and parents were very happy! I only took a handful of routines this year because I had never attended, but we will definitely be taking our entire studio next season to one of your events! Thanks for being a company that truly cares and is fair, us “little guys” appreciate it more than we can explain!

We were at the same competition as the previous reviewer, and when I overheard the stuff about this judge I started investigating. Her name is listed on the studio's website as an instructor. Her own professional website states she is an instructor at the said studio, 2 of her 3 personal assistants actually won title at this competition, and there is a studio sign in on her website. Sadly, I heard the owner of this competition denied all of the information that is readily available on the internet. I personally used to like this competition, but I would not recommend it now. And for anyone to think that perhaps this judge did not participate in the judging of her own routines, I personally watched her score many after I started reading things on the internet.

This competition states in their rules that they do not allow judges to be affiliated with studios competing. This is untrue. Was just at an event where not only was the judge affiliated with a studio competing, she cleaned and choreographed every one of their dances. She also judged her assistant, who won every thing she competed in. The studio swept all the awards they competed for. I definitely do not recommend this competition and we will NOT do it again.

We did this competition for 2 years and enjoyed it. We miss this competition

Midwest Starz has really upped its game. Having attended for many years in a row, this was the most organized and fun year so far. One studio owner was pretty loud about her daughter not getting a trophy, but I wouldn't have known if I hadn't been standing close to them and seemed like comp owner handled it appropriately. Kid friendly....they really enjoyed it.

The Wisconsin Dells Nationals were our first trip to a national comp and we had a great time! At Regionals, the programs sold out and the director printed me a copy of the pages I wanted for my daughter's dances. The staff were all friendly, happy and helpful at the t-shirt/concession booth, much more so than some of the other comps we've attended. At Nationals, due to some technical difficulties, the photos of one of my daughter's routines were lost. The staff member at the photo booth was great - he apologized and looked into the problem for me promptly. Although it was disappointing to not have those photos, he offered to discount the other routines I was purchasing. I was impressed with the effort that was put into finding a resolution and the willingness to go that extra mile! I also appreciated that each of the judges personally presented their Judge's Choice Awards and spoke briefly of why they chose that routine. Little details like that made this comp a wonderful experience!

They changed the title rules 2 times after we registered from the original rule on their website at the time of registration. We registered based on those rules & we should have qualified. Then they sent out a change right before the comp. Then when our dancer who won was told she was disqualified they changed the rule again. They took our money with no refund for the solo entrance fees paid to compete.

We really enjoyed this competition. We will be back!

We attended Nationals and I was disappointed in a few things. The Grand Nationals is not what we expected at all. The soloist for each age group just competed against solos that they already competed against. We thought they would compete against all solos at their level. Waste of time and money to stay the extra day to attend it. Nice honor but different way of doing it. Felt they should try to take more groups also for Rising Star level. Small groups competing against large groups and lines made more sense for Grand Nationals than the solo and duet/trio competition did.

This is one of the best competitions out there. We have attended their regionals for years and done their nationals multiple times. The staff are incredibly friendly and the owners are phenomenal. This is a comp that rewards the kids\' hard work and great attitudes. They build up the dance community as a whole. Judging is very fair. They don\'t give out platinums as though they are skittles. This past weekend out of 21 soloists in RS Mini there were only 5 or 6 platinums. It was even tougher at the Starz level. This is the way it should be. Platinum should be difficult to attain. This comp is doing it right! The medals are beautiful! They are the nicest ones I have ever seen. I also love that they give a medal for each child in duets and trios. So many comps only give one and then someone is left out. This comp is doing it right! It would have helped if the dressing rooms had been assigned but the dressing room spaces were huge and every studio had plenty of space. So again, this comp is doing it right! The last thing I want to mention is how huge this comp is getting. In the past it would have been 3 maybe 4 days. This year this comp started Wednesday and went through Sunday. There were close to 1100 routines. Obviously word is getting around! :-) WE LOVE STARZ!

Always a fun competition to attend. Owners and staff are friendly and helpful. Organization and experience gets better every season.

We\'ve been 3 times now to MWS. Staff is always friendly, kids have fun at awards and time is taken to award the kids. Awards are not rushed. The judging has always been fair. I wanted to address a couple of issues raised by the NOSD mom below me. While I agree having all (groups, solos, duet/trios) the STARZ preteen dances in a 4-5 hour period was CRAZY, you misled people here about the special judges award. That 10 year old, (JS are her initials in case you were wondering if I actually know who you are talking about.) was awarded for her lyrical dance. The judge did drone on about how her two other solos had a lot of hip thrusting and other things, she was glad to see the softer side in her lyrical solo. The child is new to your studio and maybe shaking things up in the totem pole. Sounds like sour grapes to me. Fact is she was rewarded for lyrical not jazz or Hip Hop. Singed a mom from another studio. I didn\'t like seeing a competition lied about. ETA.......I see the mom below me has edited her post to remove the part saying \"a girl from her studio was rewarded\". It was there, but now gone. Doesn\'t change the fact the child was rewarded for lyrical.

The schedule was ridiculous. We had back to back dances. EVERYTHING was crammed into a few hours and my daughter is 9 and dances in 8 dances. There was not time to enjoy it. I was also disappointed in the judging. One girl in particular was \"rewarded\" by the judges with a judges choice award for very inappropriate dancing(twerking) She was 10. It is not at all age appropriate. Pictures were reasonably priced. I did not enjoy all the extra time and music and dancing the girls did on stage. Awards needs to move on quickly especially when you have already watched hours of dancing,

LOVE participating in this competition at both regional and nationals! Not as much competition at the Dubuque nationals vs Wisconsin Dells, but both great experiences! Judging has always been fair with good critiques. Staff are extremely friendly and helpful! Awards move along in timely manner and schedule is reasonable to work with. If I had to make a complaint, it would really be about not permitting large studios to enter the smaller town competitions, because they just dominate the competition by the sheer number of acts they bring. Ours was just such a studio and I felt terrible that our multitude of dancers/numbers was in essence winning most of the awards due to odds, since we massively outnumbered every other studio by a LOT!! In reality, winning isn\'t much fun for the dancers either, if your just competing against your own studio for the most part. Big studios with lots of numbers should be competing in at least cities the size of where thier studios are located...not smaller...but that\'s just my opinion. It\'s great to have a competition company that caters to states in the midwest and in doing so, can hold competitions in smaller towns and larger cities! Hands down...our family\'s favorite dance competition to attend, both as competitors and spectators!

They always have a good venue. Nice open space for dressing and practice area.

The regionals was fine. Another solid competition. Their Nationals was a mess! Mis-communications, room changes and no one seemed to know what was going on! It was overcrowded and kids were waiting all day thinking they had to stay for the shootout only to be bumped at 10:00 the night before. Nice people, but very disorganized.

My dancer loves Midwest Starz! The judges and all of the staff are great! My only complaint is that the competition is broken into 2 rooms so we can not watch all of our studios dances.

I think the scoring of this competition is good. Felt like it is better than most competitions. My daughter hated that the judges walk around and point at certain people and tell them they are awesome at awards, she said that makes the others feel bad. Saw judges talking to specific groups and acting like they have known them forever and I\'m pretty sure that a guy that was working with the competition went up to a girl and told her great job and that he loved her so that was odd. There were so many solos I couldn\'t believe not more awards were given. There were 50 something in lyrical alone and they couldn\'t do category top five? Overall wasn\'t a terrible competition but probably won\'t attend nationals again next year maybe regionals though.

Hmm…Rant or rate. I will think I will go with rant. To start out with it is a nice kid friendly competition. Sometimes a little too kid friendly. Then there are the friendships that show out in the open and it makes you think that something is fishy. Overheard was this boy who was a national title winner saying that he knew the tall judge likes showy stuff and even though the kid was supposed to be centered in the dance he was in front of that judge as much as possible. Of course their dances did well not sure if they were marked down because the boy blew the formations. How does a kid know this stuff anyway? Lot’s of hugging with the DJ’s and the Sinn’s and also with the judges, ridiculous. Some dances made it to the shoot out and some of them we still can’t figure out how they got in, one or two dancers were good and the rest without any technique. The Shootouts for the mini and Junior the kids were robbed, dances that should have won because of more technical ability and musicality finished 2nd, same with the duos/trio’s and these kids were not even from our studio. The topper of the whole thing with this backwards competition was the National Grand Champions. This is the total joke of the whole comp. These kids competed months/weeks ago and also performed their solos at the nationals and got their butts handed to them, and did not even make the shootout. Mind you the shootout dancers not only beat them earlier in the week to qualify for the Grand National shootout but then had to compete again against the top 4 or 5 dancers. Once the shootout was over that child received a little trophy for the Grand National shootout winner. Then they had to sit there and watch as these kids who they just beat earlier in the week go up and get a nice big trophy and be recognized as a national champion. I hope our studio does not go back!

This is a fun competition. My only complaint is that the schedule isn\'t available until last minute. Other competitions manage to post schedules 1 to 2 weeks ahead of time, Midwest Starz should be able to do The same.

Our studio will attend this competition in a few weeks. We have gone twice before. I agree with previous posters about only acknowledging a top 5! Top 10 for solos is certainly warranted when there are 30+ in the age/level. I hope the folks at Midwest Starz read this and consider changing their Overalls to the more common top 10. I also love the unique \"standout dancer\" awards that are given for group dancers as well as soloists. It gives non-soloists a chance to be acknowledged, too.

We were really impressed with this competition. Our first time attending since 5 years ago and the competition has come a long way. The staff was friendly. They had judges who were qualified in ALL styles of dance. Our venue was nice, even with having 2 rooms going on. Awards take a little while but they really take pride in their award sessions and try to make it fun for the kids. All of the kids get their pictures taken. All the standout dancer certificates & judges choice awards are typed and printed out (which is partly why awards take awhile). The judges take a good time explaining their award, so it actually really means something. The videos and pictures are very impressive and are very well done. The medals/awards are not cheap & are very nice. My only complaint about this would be I wish they acknowledged a top 10, not a top 5. Out of almost 450 acts , with only 2 levels, only a top 5 are recognized in each age & level. I wonder if their nationals is the same way, especially since it will be bigger. 5 to me is just not enough. Overall, we were very impressed and are considering their nationals.

We really enjoy this competition. The venue is a bit tight but the competition is a lot of fun and the medals are beautiful.

Always a favorite comp to attend - plus we love supporting a local business. We will be attending nationals at WI Dells!

I\'ve attended this competition in 2014 and 2015. In 2014 I was very pleased and the competition went very well. In 2015 I was very disappointed. The dances went out of order sometimes with 10 to 20 minute unscheduled breaks. The dressing rooms were nice, spacious, and had good lighting. The awards also went smoothly but they didn\'t have music playing for us to dance to. The critiques we got back were very unsatisfying some groups and solos got videos of their dances and some just got score sheets with critiques and some got both. The judges also didn\'t give much feedback or reasoning for the award that they gave you. Overall this competition was disappointing this year.

We have attended this comp twice, once in 2014 and once in 2015. We loved it last year, but not so much this year. The biggest disappointment was the lack of feedback from the judges. I feel like part of what we are paying for is feedback from the judges on what the dancers did well and what they need to work on. I don\'t need to hear the judge singing along to the song they are dancing to and not giving one comment about the dancing.

We have attended this competition the past three years, and have mixed feelings about it overall. The staff can be very hit or miss - either really great to deal with or absolutlely down right rude. At times the competition can run very smoothly, on time, and be great. At other times they can be either ahead or way behind schedule, many \'musical breaks\' between dances. Stage has never been the greatest for the dancers to be performing on. And facility layout for having two rooms of competition, does not have enough room in the hallways for parents / studio staff to get from the performance room to the dressing room without getting stuck in a hallway full of people.

We attended both the 2014 regionals and nationals. Both were absolutely wonderful events. The staff is wonderful to work with and very accommodating. The competition ran smooth and was the judging was extremely fair. The feedback received from the judges was very helpful, positive, and also very kid friendly. All the students always have a blast at this competition. The awards are fun and make everyone feel like they achieved something. Highly recommended!!

Our studio has attended this comp several times as it is quite local and easy to get to. It can be hit or miss from year to year. While they used to basically put anyone on stage who showed up ready no matter the order, they cleaned that up for a couple of years, but seem to be lax on that again. Frustrating that during the production/line competition times that many kids are in multiple dances at the same studio and it causes quite a bit of time between routines for costume/hair/make up changes. Not sure how to make that better other than point deductions or not allowing studios to bring so many productions that use the same dancers in each one. They always run a very fun program, and the owners are always present and approachable.

This competition runs so unorganized. Very tough to understand judging when judges are handing out awards for styles of dance they didn\'t know at all (we know this because of one particular judge saying it over the microphone during judges choice awards). Nationals were unorganized and needed 2 days of finals.

We were not pleased or impressed with this competition at all, even though all of our numbers did well and placed high. The entire thing was seriously disorganized with routines skipping all over the place. It made it extremely hard for parents and viewers to figure out who was on stage or going next. The sound system was terrible too and the announcer tried to blame our studio by saying, \"hey girls, why don\'t you start over and have your instructors give us a better copy of your music?\" This in spite of the fact that it happened to several other studios and music selections. How unprofessional! One routine completely bombed because the little girls clearly couldn\'t remember their dance and they actually allowed them to \"go practice\" for 20 minutes and then come back and try again, which is unheard of and again completely unprofessional. We definitely will not be attending in the future.

This competition was a fun one to attend! The only issue that we had was that there were so many dancers signed up to dance that they had to split us in 2 rooms to compete. So we did not get to watch and cheer on all of our friends.

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The dressing room situation was awful way to crowded. Other studio\'s were awfully rude! I personally didn\'t think the judging was fair. The number that recieved top score in our division deserved it they were great but the 2nd and third place were AWFUL. I feel that we got shafted because we didn\'t bring as many numbers as the rest of the studio\'s.

Easily the worst competition of the year. It seemed nothing ran in order. Our teams were consistently ready so they would often end up going on maybe 30-45 minutes before their scheduled time! We\'d sit through the whole catagories just waiting to see who would show up next. One night there was literally 10-15 minutes of NOTHING between every. single. dance for over an hour. My DD had 2 dances entered in the wrong catagory and then was never included in the overalls for the correct catagory, despite SO attempting to correct these before the comp. Only blecher seating and bad lighting for the gym stage made for a very 3 long days. Did not care for the judging, at least one set. Out of 3 overalls I witnessed, all three times one single studio took all of the top 5 overalls. It seemed like the judges had a certain \"type\" or \"style\" they liked, and that was what was rewarded. I saw some amazing dances (not from our studio) there that I thought would run away with everything only get a high gold!

My favorite by far. Staff is so friendly and accommodating. In all my years of competition, is was the fairest judging I have ever seen. It didn\'t matter if you brought one routine or 100 routines, they were all judged the same.

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We have been attending Midwest Starz for several years. This year daughters scores for one of her group numbers was also lost and they did not even make overall. The judging did not seem fair. The merchandise staff was very rude and didn\'t act as if they wanted my business. I hope they were just having a bad year and will read these reviews and fix the issues.

This competition has been one of my favorites-great venue, plenty of space in dressing rooms, strong efforts to run on time, fair judging, etc. This year, we were told our scores for my daughter\'s jazz dance were lost, along with another team from our studio as well as a few more dances. As far as I know, the competition did not review the video, and did not let our dancers perform again. They gave us a \"score\" based on hand written notes. That was weird because the judges all use computers! My daughters team \"conveniently\" came in 6th overall, and they only call the top 5. Very disappointed in the way this was handled, because everything else about this comp is fantastic.

This competition is well run. Everything ran on time,if not a little early. Dressing rooms were a little far from the staging area, but for the set up they were nice. While I understand why they run the two stages, it made it hard for the team to be there to cheer for the other age groups. It also split our faculty.

Best competition I have ever been to! The staff is wonderful and great to work with. They work around scheduling conflicts very easily and almost always run on time. Every single one of my dancers leave feeling accomplished and everyone has a great time. Super fun environment! The judging is very fair, and the judges make sure to give critiques in a positive way. They also bring their own stage, which is the biggest and best stage my dancers have been on. They have fantastic trophies, plaques, and overall awards. They even give two trophies to duets and three trophies to trios! LOVE THIS COMPETITION!