I am curious, now that Unified auditions are over, which location would you recommend. It looks like each location has it;s pros and cons and some of you have been to more than one.
Chicago was much better in my opinion. Everyone in one nice hotel, almost all auditions in that one hotel, many more schools over more days and more walk in opportunities. Nice audition rooms (except if you have to do a dance call on carpet). But generally, much more fun for kids and more relaxed for parents. NYC location was overheated, grittier (as befitting for NYC), overcrowded, and filled with lots of stress buckets running around trying to get walk ins.
We did NYC & Chicago Unifieds & prefer Chicago Unifieds (we stayed at Palmer House on Exec Level with lounge & it was so convenient). Highly recommend! It is close to many restaurants plus near FedEx/UPS, Target/CVS/Walgreens, etc. if you need or forgot something.
Do some schools stay strictly at NYC unifields? I’m considering going to Chicago rather than NYC.
@mtkb17, my daughter and I traveled to Chicago 3 years ago. We debated between NYC and Chicago, but more of the schools on here list would be in Chicao, so I think that more schools are probably there. She was able to do 7 auditions.
There are some schools that schedule auditions “near” only one unified location on the same weekend or the days before. This includes colleges that are located in those cities. Really depends on your specific list. NYC worked well for us.
My D attended both NYC and Chicago Unifieds. While she liked both, she preferred Chicago. There was more space, so it didn’t feel as crammed and hectic. In retrospect, she said that she was glad she did both because she did enjoy both experiences, but that, if she had to pick one to attend, it’d be Chicago.
Chicago is a hot mess and i loved every second of it. I only had 2 auditions scheduled but i wound up doing 8 in two days. It was such a cool and fun process and everything was placed much more conveniently than in New York where it was in three buildings across the street from one another and some schools across town.
I am surprised there isn’t more preference for the LA location. I have heard it is less crowded and no weather travel issues, which seem to be the major complaint about Chicago and NYC by most families. Any LA Unifieds people out there? Maybe there is a downside to LA?
@Notmath1 The first thing my coach told me when we were discussing the schedule of my auditions was that by the time schools get to LA and Las Vegas, they have seen many auditions, and most of the time their whole faculty is not even there. I cannot confirm whether this is true or not, it’s just what I was told. Personally, I felt a pull to go to New York and Chicago for many reasons. First, I had an on campus audition at BW the weekend of LA, and many schools that just do on campus auditions audition that weekend as well. It simply made more sense to blend them into one trip than to do LA, and then have to go to those schools on campus. The next major reason is that Chicago was the longest with the most schools attending, leading to ample walk in opportunities and making it easier to get everything in. All of my friends who have gone through this or did it this year, echoed the same sentiment. For me personally, I enjoyed Chicago more, though I only did two in NYC. What I appreciated is that, you could go back to your room or go away at Chicago, it seemed less stressful so long as you avoided the lobby. In NYC, everyone is all over the place all the time. There is no chance to withdraw at Pearl, you are just there constantly among the stressballs that are prospective MT majors.
We did LA and only LA. I hadn’t responded to this thread because we didn’t go to the others and had nothing to compare it to. But it seemed really relaxed and lowkey compared to the experiences we read about from the other cities. There is never a weather issue, the colleges are mainly in one hotel, though a few non-unified schools are there at other hotels on the same street. My son and I thought it was even more relaxed than Moonifieds. There seemed to be lots of walk-in appointments available for those who wanted them.
We did Chicago and Los Angeles and by far preferred the less stressful and more relaxed vibe in LA. I wish I had known that some schools start on Friday. We would have left Chicago a day earlier. Perhaps part of it is LA is home for us so we felt back in our element. D saved most of her highest priority schools for the LA weekend and was really glad she did. I don’t regret going to Chicago because it was necessary in order to get in all the auditions but definitely like LA better.
So here is another perspective, to mix things up… 
My D and I were at both the Chicago and LA Unifieds and we both preferred Chicago. Yes, Chicago was a bit more crowded and the wait times for the elevators were LONG, but a big plus for us was the convenience of being in the city center, with many eating options right outside the hotel, and stores where you could buy an item you forgot to pack. In LA there was nothing around the hotel as far as restaurants or stores (it is located on the airport grounds). The hotel has only one restaurant, which we used for our lunches and dinners, so that was a bit monotonous. If you rent a car or get a taxi or Uber (which we didn’t) you can venture farther, but with the busy schedule we didn’t want to venture too far from the hotel. When we needed to buy something there was only the hotel’s gift store and it didn’t carry the item we needed. Of note, the LA hotel had a Bachata convention going on (it’s a type of Latin dance) so on the elevator and corridors we also encountered some rowdy young adults who were attending that convention, including one drunk guy who was twirling around in the elevator holding his full drink glass, almost spilling it on my D’s audition dress! 
I was told by one of the college reps that last year the Bachata convention also coincided with the LA Unifieds.
@Monkeiiboy I understand what you are saying and had not heard that point of view. Totally makes sense. I forgot to include Moonifieds in this original question posted. Especially since Moonifieds is early ( in November). Does anyone have an opinion about Moonifieds as opposed to the Unifieds locations?
Regarding Moonifieds vs. Unifieds, my d preferred Chicago Unifieds to Moonifieds because:
- The level of competition was consistently high at Moonifeds compared to Unifieds. According to d, she heard more great voices through the doors in Dallas than at Unifieds or any on-campus audition, and there were more solid dancers at Moonifieds than any other dance call. She found it a little intimidating, even though she was from a very competitive PA HS.
- Around 50 percent of Moonified auditions are actually live prescreens, not final auditions, so you still have to audition for the program on-campus or at Unifieds if you pass the Moonified prescreen.
- D liked the scale and energy of the environment at the Palmer House in Chicago. She loved the downtown location, the beautiful architecture of the hotel, and the plethora of schools holding auditions.
That said, my d was very glad that she went to Moonifieds because it was great experience for the road ahead, both in subsequent college auditions and now as she attends professional auditions. It also gave her a shot to get in front of many schools that she would not have been able to include on her list otherwise. Moonifieds is very well organized and an absolutely breeze to sign up for, you just email the list of schools that want to audition for and poof, Moo’s assistant sends back a complete schedule of auditions. The registration process for Moonifieds is infinitely easier than what you go through for Unifieds. You can pack in as many as 20 auditions in three days. The Hilton in Dallas is nice and there are several good restaurants in the chichi shopping center that adjoins the hotel.
This thread contains various posts on experiences at Moonifieds:
@EmsDad you bring up a very interesting point. Did your daughter find that the programs who held the live in person prescreen option at Moonifieds more pressure/nerve wracking that sending a digital prescreen? Or did she prefer doing the prescreens live in person? I think some other programs conduct live prescreens at Unifieds in addition to a digital submission option.
@Notmath1 - my d absolutely felt more pressure doing live prescreens than digital ones, especially since she felt the level of competition at Moonifieds was relatively high. While she passed almost all of her video prescreens, she did not pass many live prescreens at Moonifieds, even though some of the video prescreens that she passed were for schools that are generally regarded as more difficult for artistic admission than the ones that she did not pass at Moonifieds. However, I can easily see where some students would thrive on live prescreens and fail to deliver as good a performance in front of a camera. So, your-mileage-may-vary.
I personally believe that individual odds may be lower at Moonfieds due to the level of competition and human nature, i.e., my theory is that when the audition pool is of a generally high quality, those auditioning will be held to a higher standard than they might be in a less competitive pool. However, this may be a really weak theory.
We attended Moonifieds this year and loved it but we did not do any live prescreens there. We only did final audition schools and for us, that worked really well. One thing to consider is that Moonifieds doesn’t happen until right before Thanksgiving and for a type A planner like me, that was a long time to wait to see if D would pass and then try to get audition dates scheduled. We did her prescreens early so by the time we got to Moonifieds, we already knew the outcomes for all of them and had them scheduled. For example, otterbein and penn st were doing live prescreens at Moonifieds but we did our actual auditions for both of those on campus in December and I don’t think we would have been able to schedule those if we had waited. We had what I would consider awesome results from those early auditions and I would highly recommend it. D made an awesome group of new friends, decided to change one of her songs based on early feedback, and ended up with several acceptances before Christmas. All of the kids there are talented, well- prepared, dressed well, etc. but since we were warned in advance by @EmsDad and the rest of the cc crew, we expected it and didn’t find it any more stressful than any other audition and my D actually preferred the atmosphere because they keep the parents out of the way and re-arrange times if a school gets ahead or behind so it took a lot of pressure off her. Moo and her crew are so well organized and the whole thing runs like clockwork that we wished she’d take over unifieds too!
i wholeheartedly agree with @EmsDad - and I add to the fact that many kids greatly improve their audition work between November (Moonifieds) and February (Chicago) – mine had far better results out of Unifieds. I agree also that the competition in Texas was far greater compared to what my D heard in Chicago. As for the in person vs video prescreen – that is a very personal question but I think both have advantages/disadvantages.
@mtmamma2020 why did you think the competition was greater at moonifieds? Was it just because they weren’t that experienced? I’m helping someone in the process for 2022. We didn’t use a coach per se and we only did on campus auditions and video prescreens in our process last year.