utee94

Absolutely and I completely agree or we wouldn't be going. It's going to be a great experience for the kids, and for us to share with them. I'm just not sure everyone understands the sheer expense of a trip like this, the numbers for an entire band are enormous, and the individual demand placed on each family is just not at all affordable for a lot of folks.

It's a question of allocation of resources, and I don't blame any band, even "rich" ones, for choosing not to spend that money on a super-expensive trip. Our band is going to Grand Nationals this year and the trip is going to cost over half a million dollars. That's on top of the normal annual budget so this year the band overall is spending north of 3/4 of a million dollars. That's pretty crazy money. For my family alone, with two kids in band, this year is costing us around $8,000 to pay for the kids and for our support of them and the band. We're blessed and can afford it, but that's not chump change.

Thanks for the advice it's appreciated. After Finals and the retreat and awards ceremony, which should run pretty late, it's highly likely we won't even sleep at our hotel rooms. Just grab a quick shower and head to the airport. It's already been a crazy past 8 days and it's not going to slow down for another week.

Flying Thursday, prelims Friday, then wait and see for Saturday. Flying back Sunday on an early flight.

I really loved their show, for sure. As a Leander ISD homer I have a special affinity for them, and the father of the first VR trumpet soloist was sitting right in front of me in the Alamodome and we'd been talking for a while before they marched, and he was the nicest, most sincere guy. My wife (illegally! ) took contraband video of his son playing, and then got his number and forwarded it to him afterward, and he was in tears. I'd be delighted for them if they placed even higher than I predict!

I'm thinking similar to you-- Hebron and Vandegrift are going to score very highly using UIL criteria. I've got FloMo and VR swapped but it could certainly turn out as you predict, and everything beyond that from 4-10 is a jumble that could go just about any direction. This competition will be fierce, and fun to watch!

Oh wow, that's really terrible if y'all took a penalty for that! But I'm not surprised it happened, someone did the same thing to us during Prelims performance as we were headed into the tunnel to exit, it was really weird. I've moved props/front ensemble equipment for prelims and finals for 2 UIL State tournaments and prelims and finals for 3 BOASA tournaments and this was the only time something like that has ever happened. I literally had to just push props around the person trying to stop us, to make way for all of the equipment behind me. There's only one way out and it's crazy to block the exiting band from using ANY of that exit tunnel as they're trying to move equipment off the field in order to make it in time.

Wow what a weekend! Flower Mound's visuals just blew me away, it's definitely my favorite show outside of my own kids' of course. That was a much deserved Finals victory. And congrats to all the other Finalists and indeed all the bands that participated. The level of competition at this tournament is just unbelievable.

I love that! I've helped parents and kids from other schools with their props and equipment several times over the past few years, and I've received their help as well. The marching band community truly is an amazing group of supportive, caring people.

Gonna be a quick down and back trip for us. Gotta leave here around 9:30 to make it to Lot A by 11:30, band performs at 1:30, we'll be packed up and gone by 2:15, hopefully home by 4:45 depending on traffic (and how long we spend at Buccees 😉 ). I'd really like to be home in time to catch Ronald Reagan's show streaming, at 5, and then FloMo shortly thereafter.

I think CP has finished 11, 10, 9 over the past 3 years. So I guess the mathematically correct prediction for this year, would be 8th? The SASR is always just so stacked, making Finals at all, is a major accomplishment. Fun part is, we'll all get to watch it play out on the field, over the next 2 days! Truly wishing the best of luck to all competing bands, this is the fun stuff, enjoy it!

Another thing to keep in mind is the distribution of the ages of those band members. Cedar Park has grown tremendously over the past year due to rezoning in LISD, but the vast majority of that increase is in the freshman class. CP's freshmen make up somewhere between 1/3 and 1/2 of the band this year. That's a LOT more new young marchers, with percentage-wise relatively fewer upperclassmen to manage/teach them. It could potentially work against a band, compared to another band that's more evenly distributed with a larger percentage of experienced, veteran upperclassmen. I don't think that's the way it has worked out for CP so far this year, in fact I've been incredibly impressed with all of the new freshmen, but it's not as easy as just saying "more = better."

I've seen our band do it both ways. Call time at the band hall as early as 3:30 AM for an out-of-town competition with an early performance time, or stay overnight, like our band did this past Sunday night for a (relatively) early call time for State Prelims on Monday morning. Staying overnight works better for the kids, I think, but it's definitely all about the budget. Like @Miyazuu pointed out, the District is more likely to pay for overnights for UIL.

I have no idea what that means but now I can't wait to see this dirty laundry hanging all over the field!

Now that 5A UIL State is over, my thoughts have turned to this competition. I enjoy BOA in a different way than UIL. For me personally, and I'm not speaking for my kids, or for the band directors or boosters or anyone else-- I consider UIL competition to be more important, and I also prefer the scoring for UIL over BOA. I understand that's a heated debate around here, but it's just my personal opinion and approach to the activity of marching band. Everyone else on the planet can vehemently disagree with me and that's fine, I don't feel like it needs to be debated any further, it already gets plenty of discussion time on this forum and the other one. However, all that said, since I consider UIL to be more like business, in a lot of ways it makes BOA more fun. I like the multiple conference classifications competing against one another, I like that anyone can participate, I like the variety of shows and styles on display. So now I'm really looking forward to this one, and to Grand Nats the following week. I'm not the prediction-making type, and I haven't yet seen all of the shows that are likely to make finals, but the predictions I've seen so far all look about right to me. But then again, sometimes we see surprises at Finals, and that makes it fun as well. Wishing everyone all the luck, it's going to be a fun couple of days in San Antonio. But I'll be honest, when we're done, I'm not going to miss driving up and down I35 4 times in less than a week...

Haven't been able to watch as much as I wanted today but caught Redwater's show, that trombone solo, WOW!

I'm not really familiar with 3A so I'm just watching for entertainment. Anyone I should be looking out for?

I'll be watching online streaming when I can. Gotta try to squeeze some actual work in, too.

That's an interesting idea. Give the Area champion their choice of available slots already assigned to that Area throughout the sessions at State, and then all other Area participants are randomly assigned to the remaining slots.

Just got back from SA, what an amazing afternoon/evening. Congrats to all the finalists, and to the Leander Three for sweeping the medals. I really like the Leander and Rouse shows and of course I'm very familiar with them. But my favorite that is not from Leander ISD, is definitely Lone Star, such a pretty show with just beautiful moments. I also really enjoyed Argyle and Aledo shows. And of course my favorite that did not make Finals is still Lake Belton. I'll be watching all of the above in the future, no doubt they'll continue to improve and impress.

Yeah my kids at CP believe they have a better run in them for today. But I have no doubt all the other bands are going to step it up for Finals. Should be a lot of fun to watch. Time for me to go load the trucks and get moving to San Antonio. Everyone enjoy the shows, and best of luck to all that are competing!

Watching 1A State Prelims right now, I really love watching what these bands do with their shows, given their size and often-times financial constraints, compared to the massive 6A and 5A powers. It reminds me a lot more of what my high school's marching shows were 30 years ago, even though we were a decently-resourced 5A school. Times have certainly changed. They work hard, just like all the kids at bigger schools, and I love seeing them get to show their stuff in the Alamodome.

Best of luck to all of the 5A Finalists, gonna be an awesome afternoon of marching band!

Y'all sounded awesome, thanks for spending your time to put on a show and entertain the masses.

I enjoyed their show so much! Was really disappointed for them for being so close. I don't know who I would have omitted to put them in, but it's still tough that they were first out.