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if u finish 1st or 2nd in A at a WGI regional, or 1st in Open, u have to submit a vid of your guard to WGI. Dale (guard division director), Karl (education coordinator), and Curtis (chief judge) vote yes or no after carefully considering the skills of the unit. if even one of em votes no, the guard remains in the same class. if all vote yes, the vote expands to the larger steering committee. a simple majority of yes votes there will cause the guard to be reclassified. Emerson should at least make semis in open methinks. that's the rough definition of having "marked success" after reclassification, what the committee aims for.

We need to get competitive betting on this area at some point because what happened last year was too strange to not take advantage of

Let's take a look at some of the New Business (Stuff that will be discussed in May) D1: Conference 1A proposal to make their Region Contests point based rather than, "You got a 1 rating, please advance to State." Unsure if this sets up a future Area Contest for 1A programs. Budgets and travel are a major deal for that, but the UIL has been consistent in giving programs these opportunities if they want them. D2: Proposal to eliminate "accomplishments" from field exit scripts. Logic here is that judges might be influenced when hearing about a band's accolades. Judges are usually waaaayyy too busy at the end of a show with writing comments and finishing up audio commentary to pay attention to that stuff. D3: The adults on Facebook (also known as Nega TikTok) are extremely vocal about this one. This proposal would advance an additional program to State if your Area had a medalist at State Finals the previous year. The sentiment is felt. I'm sure there are some programs that feel like the cards are stacked against them because their Area has a lot of successful programs in it. If this passes (it won't), you can basically throw UIL/TMEA Realignment out the window. The whole purpose of creating an Area J for Conference 6A, and the reason for realignment as a whole, is to give equal representation to Areas across the State as possible. Creating rules for a few programs doesn't serve the activity as a whole. We have to think about an entire State. D4: Medals going out to State Finalists would mimic what Bands Of America does for their Grand National Finalists. I can tell you that the UIL has really upped the pageantry game on State Finals in recent years which I am very grateful for. Back when I was doing my State Finals thing, the retreat felt very transactional and sterile. Would giving every State Finalist participant a medal water down the experience of receiving a Bronze, Silver, or Gold one? Hard to say. I think caption awards at State Finals needs to be a thing first before considering this. D5: Changing the timing penalty at Region Contest has been a topic circulating for the past few years. Currently, the penalty for going over the eight minute performance time is a lowering of division rating (If you got a 1, the penalty would give you a 2 across the board). Some proponents feel that the penalty is too harsh and that a written reprimand is sufficient enough. However, the Eight Minute Rule in UIL will likely never change. There's a reason Halftime performances are only allotted so much time and why there are specific penalties in place when the band/spirit groups go over. D6: Moving to an indoor venue would be challenging to say the least. Not everyone has those facilities available on short notice. Area I last Fall was one of the most wild marching contests on record. Multiple weather delays, restarts, announcements during performances to pull students off the field, damage to set pieces, and much more. There's only so much that can be done during Area Saturday aside from moving the contest back a day or two. D7: Fun Fact. UIL used to release full State Prelims rankings publicly right before State Finals. Those were some crazy times in the press box! One reason that this proposal may be on the table is to prevent State Finalist programs from knowing where they have placed before heading into the most stressful performance of their lives. With that being said, State Finals already has a top half/bottom half performance draw so you already have a ballpark of where you currently rank. Trust me. It's difficult to ignore those recaps when they start circulating throughout social media.