principalagent

Kelly Reeves has a noise ordinance that requires no sound after 11 PM. If finals doesn't start by 8:30, it won't happen.

In the immortal words of one of my favorite rappers: "Top five no debating. Top five, top five, top five"

Not the case. I think Seven Lakes probably had thirty more seconds down. Additionally, Seven Lakes was ahead of Brazoswood all last season.

Contracts and Torts midterms call! I will be typing study guides while watching the livestream

Agreed. The Rage account is hilarious. The other ones aren’t because they’re actual people

By my count, none. BOA just raised the limit between classes AAA and AAAA to I believe 1750. For a four year school, that’s 2333 students. That was enough to keep Leander safely in its class while barely being enough to keep Vista Ridge and Vandegrift out. But considering that younger grades generally have more students than older grades, I wouldn’t be shocked to see Vista Ridge in AAA this year.

I agree in full. Vandegrift's show design is perfect for UIL but lacks visual dynamism which seemingly would hurt them in BOA. Then again, I said the same thing last year and the judges didn't agree with me at all. I think Leander has the edge in all the visual captions and probably by a decent amount, they're about even on Music GE, and Vandegrift has the edge on Music Performance. Editing to add: I think LISD-South could pull off their first BOA medal sweep this weekend. And maybe even get four groups in the top half.

While I see Leander having a better chance to beat Vandegrift in BOA, I think UIL is Vandegrift’s hands down. Leander has kept it competitive at the top in Area in 2016 and 2017, but Vandegrift’s eyes are on a medal in San Antonio.

Totally agreed with the above post. I don’t think it’s an incorrect observation to see that the Valley bands—especially the 6A ones—are struggling right now. However, the Laredo bands are truly thriving. Alexander was right on the heels of a band very likely to make Conroe finals. It’s been well over a decade since the last time a Valley/Laredo band made finals at a BOA regional in the Texas Triangle. Alexander just proved that it’s still possible.

CTJ beat recent Grand Nationals *finalists* by *seven* points at their first competition last year, not just semi-finalist level bands. While only pulling a three or so point margin here isn’t super promising, next week is really where we’ll be able to see what’s going to happen. For the first half of the season at least. Part of the issue is that there’s a lot more space between CTJ and Seven Lakes than Carmel and Centerville (generally), which can make it hard for a judge to size the gap effectively. The range of bands gets filled a bit more next week. Also, I would consider that Carmel had about six and a half minutes on the field while CTJ had double that. Both bands were at similar musical cleanliness, but CTJ has quite some room to grow visually.

That is the precursor to BOA, but that was the Summer Nationals competition they did away with by the end of the decade. I didn’t know they were a finalist in summer nationals - a great feat! Glad to see Alexander is now continuing in their legacy.

Just double checked the history books; they aren’t listed as participating in finals either year.

That would be correct.

I'm calling Seven Lakes for Conroe Finals. They're ready, and they'll be going in with BOA related comments to work with versus their Houston peers. Their first! I think it might be the first ever BOA medal to be awarded to a band from Laredo. So much history made today!!

I think it's actually Coppell's first medal too--and of course, Wylie East's first finals appearance and first medal. About half of the finalists are from West Texas (depending on if Del Rio is West Texas or not). Great things at this regional today!! Glad to see its continued growth.

Tenth year open and their first regional championship! Congrats Timber Creek!!

Announce them all! But I think they gave the physical award that day to Bowie (BOA will produce extras and send them later on) since Bell and Marcus had a ton of hardware at that time . Marcus ended up winning prelims and finals that year, after being way behind Bell in Arlington.

Indianapolis Regional Prelims in 2010 for Avon and Carmel. Nothing in TX, but quite a few close calls. There was a three-way tie on the visual caption in San Antonio prelims in 2010 though!

I think Avon and Carmel have done it before. And Bell and Marcus thinking about it.

I caught them and was pleasantly surprised! They’ve participated in the State Marching Contest a few times. Great to see them do so well; I think it’s their first BOA—at least in a while!

Thinking Seven Lakes could dark horse for that visual caption.

A true hero

Even if I choose to look at the thematic structure of the show (which I also have problems with) in the most positive and favorable light, naming your show after a Trump quote is a new level of tacky. And if it is coincidental, a name change might be in order.

One thing to watch for is that the stream price jumps to 50 a month in the summer. Considering that band goes for two months, WGI goes for two months, and DCI goes for two months, it's easier to keep the yearly subscription. 150 < 220 , if you keep track of every point of every season in every activity like a nerd like me does! Also, this way, you don't have to worry about accidentally forgetting to cancel a subscription.