At a feis an adjudicator will score a dancer on four aspects of dancing:-

• Time and rhythm

• Carriage

• Execution

• Material

The dancer will be given a mark out of 100 for each dance (they used to give each aspect a score out of 25 but now they just give an overall mark). The score is simply used as a tool to help an adjudicator rank the dancers in order of merit.

In a solo competition or a Premier where there is only one adjudicator it is very simply the dancer with the highest mark who is placed first. In competitions where there are a large number of dancers (or sometimes even when there is only a few) it is quite possible for two or more dancers to get the same mark, in which case both would share the placing (generally if two dancers share 5th place, the next dancer would still be 6th place even though there were six dancers placed higher).

 

Championship Scoring

In championships there are at least three adjudicators judging each competition, and the dancers dance two rounds before the best dancers are 'recalled' to dance a third dance.

As each adjudicator may use a slightly different scale for their marking a system has been developed to ensure the scoring is as fair as possible.

The first steps are done by each adjudicator individually

1. The adjudicator marks each dancer on the first two dances out of 100, called the raw score.

2. Then the adjudicator gives each dancers 2nd dance a raw score out of 100.

3. The two raw scores for each dancer are added together to get a total from that adjudicator - the total raw score.

4. The total raw scores are then used to rank all the dancers in order of merit according to that adjudicator.

5. Each dancer is then given a 'grid score' according to their ranking, determined from the table below. In a Championship if there is a tie with dancers having equal raw scores the grid points for those placings are shared equally among them (e.g. if two dancers tied for second place, 75+65=140 points would be shared giving both dancers 70 points each. The next place dancer would get 60 points for fourth place). If there are more than 50 dancers, those placed from 51st down will have a raw score of zero from that adjudicator.

   

Position	Grid Score	Position	Grid Score	Position	Grid Score	Position	Grid Score	Position	Grid Score
1st	100	11th	41	21st	30	31st	20	41st	10
2nd	75	12th	39	22nd	29	32nd	19	42nd	9
3rd	65	13th	38	23rd	28	33rd	18	43rd	8
4th	60	14th	37	24th	27	34th	17	44th	7
5th	56	15th	36	25th	26	35th	16	45th	6
6th	53	16th	35	26th	25	36th	15	46th	5
7th	50	17th	34	27th	24	37th	14	47th	4
8th	47	18th	33	28th	23	38th	13	48th	3
9th	45	19th	32	29th	22	39th	12	49th	2
10th	43	20th	31	30th	21	40th	11	50th	1

The grid scores for each dancer from the three (or more) adjudicators are then added together to give a total grid score. The dancers with the highest grid scores are recalled to dance again. If two dancers have tied total grid scores at the cut off point, both will be recalled.

To mark the recall;

1. The grid scores after the first two rounds are deleted.

2. The recall dance is then also marked out of 100 by each adjudicator and that score is  added to the adjudicators raw scores for the dancer from rounds 1&2 to give a new total raw score.

3. The new total raw scores are then used to rank, allocate grid scores and work out a total grid score and overall placing as in points 4-5 above. If two dancers have the same total grid score after the recall round they will share the placing.

Now you can see why sometimes it can take a long time to get the results!

 

More Information

Feis Mark	A software program used to calculate Championship results quickly
Example	A numerical example of Championship scoring