AlphaOmega

To clarify, I teach middle school and am in no way associated with this Area. A majority of folks on this site are parents and fans and are likely unaware of how different UIL judging is compared to BOA. My intent was to inform users of how the system works and why change is necessary. Other band directors are aware of how inefficient the current system is, and reworking it will benefit everyone involved.

As a band director, I always secretly make my predictions for every contest. And UIL never fails to shock me. I predicted that Hendrickson would win the Area, and that Pieper and Lockhart were locks for State. I knew Hendrickson would make it because they are historically successful. The rest were up for grabs. The judging at UIL contests is wack. There are three music judges and two visual judges. Each music judge adjudicates five captions. The visual judges each judge three captions. And you could have one judge give 1st in music and another one give the same band 20th. You rarely see such varying scores at other contests. The UIL needs to rework their judging system. The content and design caption does not judge how the students perform, so that one should be removed. There should be one judge per caption, instead of five captions per judge. They need to hire percussion-specific judges for the percussion caption. Never understood why the UIL is so stubborn with making things more efficient. I would hate to judge a UIL marching contest. I'd be overwhelmed having to judge between 3 and 5 captions at once. My friends and I always make our predictions knowing that the UIL will go the complete opposite. Congratulations to the bands who made finals. I'm anxious to hear who earns the spots for State!

It's official, they have decided to keep the guard and add the dance team. All I'll say is this: As a band director, your main priority should be students, not scores. To all those who defended Round Rock's guard either on social media, here, Reddit, or anywhere else, you are all rock stars. I am so happy to hear that you succeeded, and good luck with your future seasons!

From what I've heard, UIL loses money hosting State, which makes me wonder why they switched to every year. Bands who make State are required to go. I can't remember if they are allowed to opt out of Area. If you were a 5A band going to Nats and State this year, your students would be missing an entire week of school plus the Friday of BOA San Antonio. I did Grand Nats twice in high school. Catching up after missing three days sucked. I can't imagine a week or more. I could understand if UIL wanted to do Area every year and just determine an Area champion on non-state years. State every year for everyone just seems like a huge hassle.

IMPORTANT NOTICE ABOUT TRANSPORTATION!!!! Parmer between 620 (45 toll) and Spectrum Drive (aka on the way to Reeves) is closed both ways tomorrow. Please seek alternate routes. If you're coming from south, take 183 to Avery Ranch. If you're coming from the north, you should be good.

There are too many good bands going for me to make a placement prediction, other than Vandy taking everything. But I can list my locks and bubbles. There are a lot of Bubbles, especially after TMC on Saturday. LOCKS Vista Vandy Cedar Park Cedar Ridge Round Rock Woodlands Reagan Rouse BUBBLES Westwood Lake Travis Westlake McNeil Bowie Bridgeland CTJ Marcus Leander LD Bell? Is there anyone I missed? McNeil really jumped high at TMC so I'm including them as a bubble for the first time in my life. Round Rock improved a lot since Austin. CTJ has gone down in placements since last year and was beaten by Bridgeland in Katy. Bowie has done better in the past, but I don't want to count them out yet. How has LD Bell done? I feel like I haven't heard from them in forever. Same with Marcus. Westwood's show is great, so I'm including them as a bubble as well. Edit: I put Westlake twice, lol

Predictions: 1. Vandy 2. Rouse 3. Cedar Park 4. Round Rock 5. Westlake 6. Lake Travis 7. Leander 8. Drip 9. M&G Johnson 10. McNeil 11. Brandeis 12. Glenn The bottom half is give or take. There aren't as many bands going this weekend as I thought. I'll be getting there after the eclipse. I hope it looks super cool at the KRAC!

Is there anyone with a finals recap?

Respectfully, I disagree about them winning. I saw them and Brandeis at BOA today, and Brandeis was definitely stronger. I've also seen McNeil, and they're the strongest they've ever been. I have not seen O'Connor, so I can't say if they'll beat Glenn or not just yet. I will say, Glenn definitely is rising up. They had a great performance today. Enjoyed their show a lot.

My personal predictions based on gut feeling: 1st - Brandeis 2nd - McNeil 3rd - O'Connor 4th - Weiss 5th - John Paul Stevens 6th - Churchill 7th - Glenn 8th - New Braunfels 9th - Stony Point 10th - Belton

Round Rock has had a JV since 2015, but they only started competing at VRHS last year.

I just saw Reagan's show. I feel so bad that their electronics failed. I heard that a lot of these bands have Plan B's for in the event electronics fail. They also have "we are about to go overtime, stop and evacuate the field" protocols. It's best to be prepared, I guess.

Wasn’t expecting Vandy to win, but congrats to them! I thought RR would place higher. That’s the best show to come from them since 2012. I still think the way they judge UIL is dumb and unfair but that’s my educated opinion.

Prelims results: https://recaps.competitionsuite.com/da248ffc-e8a6-45bf-a649-1c5a443e1fda.htm

This is a pretty spicy Area too (I'm from Area D). It'd be interesting to see Brandeis overtake Lake Travis. They've risen quite a bit.