COMPETITION DETAIL

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Review Removed - Violation of Terms of Use

Fire and ice

My daughter is in her 8th year of competitive dancing, and I was a dancer for 16 years. This competition was by far the worst that we have ever experienced. The competition was gravely undersold and we were told as the largest studio there that considerations would be made to give time for costume changes etc. The backstage manager was extremely rude and was horrific to the dancers, parents and studio owners. The only positive thing I have to say is the other people working with fire and Ice were polite. They need a new back stage manager and when a competition is under sold, honor their word to the competing studios that you will allow them time for quick changes without threatening to start the dance with out all dancers ready.

This is the worst competition I have ever been to. I have been dancing for 9 years and have been competing for 4 years. Out of all of the competitions I have ever been to I can say this is the worst. If you don\'t have 60 or more kids and 80 or more dances than you won\'t get higher than a gold. There is also no concession stands. All merchandise is over $50. If you go to the Jacksonville competition it is in the middle of nowhere and there is no food places or anything. I do not recommend this competition.

If I could give them a negative rating I would the only good thing about this comp was the venue they had no concession stand which they usually don\'t an they let two huge studios dominate then give them an award for having the most numbers the awards are a joke and this is the third year I have attended this comp I WILL NEVER RETURN an I suggest nobody else go unless you have more than 100 numbers to take this was just this past weekend in Pittsburgh

The whole entire weekend seemed to last a month. 2 schools dominated the whole event and we had to wait sometimes 10 min in between dances for the girls to get ready and I am pretty sure there were NO point deductions. Also, typically I know there are time limits on how long it takes to set props up, but at this event if it took them 20 mins..that was ok! The MC did not know what he was doing, they had all sorts of issues, it was a total mess and we will not be attending this competition again next year.

backstage was a mess, kids checked in and weren\'t allowed to dance because she hadn\'t marked them as checked in, She also yelled at them several times saying they shouldn\'t be there but they had just checked in and were on in 5 dances. the judges sat talked to each other instead of watching the kids. only received 1/3 of our critiques and even those are only half of the dance because they were busy doing other things. The owner is sweet but needs to handle her staff more firmly.

backstage was a mess, kids checked in and weren\'t allowed to dance because she hadn\'t marked them as checked in, She also yelled at them several times saying they shouldn\'t be there but they had just checked in and were on in 5 dances. the judges sat talked to each other instead of watching the kids. only received 1/3 of our critiques and even those are only half of the dance because they were busy doing other things. The owner is sweet but needs to handle her staff more firmly.

The backstage handling was ridiculous. They were calling dances to go next that had never checked in, yet when they would be backstage in the wings, ready to go bc we were told to go, other numbers (as many as 5) would go before them. I understand handling costume changes, but this was absurd. Dances were waiting (after checking in on time) as much as 45 min to be announced. This was only one day! There were not hundreds of dances to handle. The judges were the most unprofessional bunch I have ever come across. They talked to each other and to the emcee throughout entire dances. I saw one cover her microphone in order to gab with the guy next to her. On the topic of the Intermediate and Advnce, the owner told my dance mom that if our dancers thought they could compete in the advance level then they should do that, but they obviously couldn\'t and that they should feel privileged to be judged from someone from Julliard. The intermediates were only there to \"feel like they are a part of the real competition\". I have NEVER had someone speak about dancers in that way.

If I could give this competition negative stars, I would. It was hands down the most unorganized and unprofessional competition that we have ever attended. The backstage staff seemed clueless about who was supposed to dance and when, the announcer had difficulty correctly pronouncing even the most simple words and names, and no one seemed at all apologetic or sorry about it. The awards ceremonies were poorly done with the announcer running backstage to hunt for awards and making several mistakes about names, numbers and awards. I felt sorry for the overall winners who were called to the side of the stage in a shadow of darkness to accept their awards. A lot of competitions run behind schedule and sometimes that\'s just the way it goes but this one ran behind due to poor management.

I only wish I had read the negative reviews before the competition date-- although I probably wouldn\'t have believed them. Unfortunately, this was absolutely the worst competition I have ever experienced. They changed the venue a week before the event, but did not update their website. The judges did not pay any attention to the dances, instead, they sang, danced in their chairs, and talked to each other. The woman who seemed to be in charge was incredibly rude when we spoke to her about the awards (they group ALL intermediate level dancers into one category regardless of age or style of dance). She simply said that they way they score had always worked for them in the past with no issues, and that they do their best to make sure the intermediate dancers \"feel like they\'re a part of the real competition\" (direct quote). She also told us that it was our coach\'s fault that we were upset for not reading the website (the website gives no real information!!). We were very calm during our discussion with her, but she was incredibly unprofessional. The awards ceremony was a joke. They only recognized the studios that paid the most money; they barely recognized any of the dancers. Half of the judges\' awards were just the name of a dance. That and the score sheets we brought home are evidence that they barely paid any attention. The competition ran behind-- which is not uncommon, as I have experienced--but they were over an hour off schedule. They did not do dances in order; they skipped around for no apparent reason. At least once, our team stood backstage for fifteen minutes after checking in as the company kept putting dances in front of them. I am fortunate that all of the parents and studio directors that I encountered were so nice, or else the whole (very) long day would\'ve been a waste. We will never again attend this competition.

I was extremely disappointed by this competition. I have been at many competitions that ran behind schedule and sometimes that is unavoidable, but there were so many other things wrong with this competition that were unacceptable. The award ceremonies were a complete joke. It was completely unorganized and they were clearly not prepared. It was so confusing and haphazard. They were announcing things out of order and giving wrong awards. They were also many instances of playing the wrong music and many delays when there were dancers ready to go on the side of the stage. The judges were not paying attention to many of the dancers, and it was blatant to the dancers on the stage. There were so many things wrong with this day that we couldn\'t even believe what was happening. It was like they had never announced dances or had an awards ceremony before? I also felt like there should be more of a variance with the judges - they all seemed to have a similar background and a similar one-sided outlook. I would not return to this competition.

Poorly ran, behind schedule by over an hour, arrived at comp at 9 am got home at 1 am! judges not paying attention and not calling awards as they should be. Hope our studio never participates in this comp again!

This was the worst dance competition I have ever been to. If you weren\'t in the advanced group, you were nobody. We were there 16.5 hrs Very poorly organized. I know there coach already said we will never do Fire & Ice again. Very sad that these girls couldn\'t be rewarded for there hard work. They work just as hard as the advanced girls.

WORST EVER! Will never go back to this joke of a crapetition. All negative reviews are 100% accurate. Horrible, horrible, experience.

Would give negative stars if I could! Very disorganized, very unprofessional, ran way behind schedule, music issues, mixed up scores, didn\'t care about obvious age/experience discrepancies, weird award categories, gave awards to the wrong routines, forgot to bring the Fire & Ice trophies for top awards, showed blatant favoritism towards studios that had the most routines (spent the most $$), even gave an award for most studio entries. Will NEVER go back to this competition.

Three words up front: Don\'t Do It! This is the first - and last - time for Fire and Ice. Absolutely the worst of the many competitions we have been a part of. Disorganized. Beyond ridiculous mixing of age and experience for competitive scoring. Five year olds in direct competition with teens, based on some convoluted allowance of experience and hours per week... Studio award for the most entries, with a cash award attached????? Scheduled routines still waiting to go on almost two hours behind scheduled performance time. Mix ups in scoring. Had to wait -in the middle of awards- for scores to be recalculated , and oops now we have a fourth winner but only three awards, oops... Horrible experience for all in attendance. You really want to steer clear of these folks. Sorry I can\'t assign zero stars.....

Loved attending this competition. The owner and staff were all very friendly and helpful. There were delays in the competition that caused it to run behind schedule, but I haven\'t been to many dance competitions that didn\'t run behind schedule most of the time. I have never been to a competition that was flawless, so I\'m not really upset about the flaws in this competition. I thought the judging was fair and the students had a good time. All in all, I was pleased with this competition and will definitely go back.

we\'ve only been once and it was not a good experience. disorganized and didn\'t like the judging/scoring

Great awards. Nice staff. Runs on time.

Did not like this competition at all! Everyone was so disorganized and under 5 groups were competing with the older girls. They announced the wrong awards, called out the wrong dance number for awards, and the music was never where the girls on stage could here it. Overall very unhappy.

I was not able to go to this competition but my studio went and said it was not very organized and they ran behind a lot. We only sent a few solos but they expressed that they did not want to go back

I love this one. Its nationals is a really fun time. Only gave it 3 because both times we went it didn\'t give ANY tap routine a diamond, when they should have.

Attended once. It was ok but nothing to brag about. Haven\'t been since.

Totally unorganized. Competition started 30 minutes late because not enough staff to get music labelled. Award system for Intermediate Division combines ALL Intermediate from Mini through Seniors into a single overall group with only Top 3 awarded. Could have been a problem with the venue but music was blasting in the audience and barely audible on stage for the dancers. Will not be doing this competition again.

Did not like this one.

Loved this competition! Love the break the ice award! Can\'t wait to go this year!

A nice well run competition. Our dancers really liked it!

Went three years ago. Terribly run, unorganized, doors did not open in time for dancers to get ready to be on stage, ran out of awards, and we NEVER got our scores or our critiques. . . still waiting three years later! I would stay away from this one!

It\'s been years, but it was awful. Too long and disorganized.

I have to say that our experience wasn't the best. I felt that since we attended a competition close to the owner's home town that there was favoritism to the studio's that the owner of the competition was friends with. I have two daughters one that performed in overall solo and one that went for title. Had I gotten our score sheets from our studio owner before leaving the venue I would have questioned the scores. My daughter who was in overall scored higher than the one in for title... and with that being said the one in overall made a huge mess of her dance. She wasn't feeling well and it was a horrible performance... where my daughter in title was flawless... it made absolutely no sense. Had I had the opportunity I would have had them review the videos and explain to me why the one scored over the other. My daughter even said she new her dance was extremely not up to par for the score they gave her. They also didn't have enough awards and ran out. They were to be mailed to the studio and as of today have not gotten it and that was 3 years ago. Also... since they put on a fake "invitational only" competition for Dance Moms... they have lost even more credibility in my book. If they sell their integrity for a pay check from Lifetime... what will they too in their regular day to day business??

One of the worst competitions we\'ve ever been to! It was totally unorganized, staff was very unfriendly and they had a somewhat inappropriate emcee. Started about an hour late each day because judges weren\'t at venue yet. Judges comments were non-existent or completely random like \"you should be a model\". Really?

Typical, average dance competition. Nothing special, nothing terrible.

I haven\'t been to this competition in a few years, so things may be different now. But, I remember this competition being well organized. With a great judging panel and great staff.

We went last year and it was very disorganized, maybe seven studios total competing and they also changed our master classes. They canceled one and ended up having one of the judges teach the other one. We also never got all of the pins our dancers earned for their ratings. Very disappointing, the owner kept saying she was friends with Abby Lee Miller, like that was supposed to make up for all of the chaos.

Great competition. Kind staff and superb Nationals! Love it!

Disorganized and they seem to show favoritism to the studios that have the most entries. They canceled master classes due to lack of interest but never refunded the money.

Went once several years ago. One judge made very inappropriate comments to one of our dancers.