utee94

Ah good, so 10 either way. Should be a great night for it.

Cool, thanks for untangling that one! The other good thing about having 25 1s, is that it means 10 for finals in addition to the 5 that will go on to State. If you're in the 20-24 range then you only get 8 for finals and 4 proceed to State. Really excited about the competition tomorrow, and good luck to all the bands and all the kids marching!

Oh wow that's terrible, I feel so bad for all of the other kids at Flour Buff. Not sure on the answer to your question, I was happy that the Area was going to send 5 this year, since last year it was only 4 and some deserving bands got left out. Makes sense, but if Flour Buff marched an ineligible player, is their 1 at Region disqualified/deleted? Or are they just disqualified from further advancement?

Yes, current cutoff for 6A is 2,275, so starting next year Cedar Park (and all other LISD schools) will be above that, and will remain above that for the next reclassification cycle for 2026-2028. If the largest school populations increase across the state, it's possible the cutoff for 6A will increase during the next reclassification because the state prefers to keep the number of schools within each classification fairly balanced. If that lower bound increases across the state, then it's possible CP and a couple of the other LISD schools will remain 5A. For reference it went up 50 students from the previous classification, the lower bound for 6A was formerly 2225 and is now 2275. For the 2020-2022 classification 6A was 2220 and above, so it only went up 5 students from 2020/22 to 2022/24. https://www.uiltexas.org/athletics/conference-cutoffs

You're right that CP was supposed to stay 5A, but the most recent LISD re-districting added portions of 2 additional middle schools to CP, plus all of CP Middle. The freshman class is huge and this should continue. So I think in 2 years it's likely that CP will move up to 6A. Really looking forward to Area competition on Saturday, my back is ready for schlepping props and equipment. At least this year it's at Gupton so an easy Saturday morning call time, even though CP is going early in the 4th slot.

I'm pretty disappointed to see Cedar Park in prelims on Friday instead of Saturday. I was hoping that since the kids are going to Grand Nationals the following week and missing two days of school for that, BOA would be considerate and put CP into prelims for BOA-SA on Saturday. The week of BOA-SA is already a very short week with Monday and Tuesday off for staff development (and going to UIL State on those days, presumably). So missing ANY more school in that week, plus two days the following week for Grand Nationals, is brutal

Yeah all of the LISD and Central Texas bands in general, have lost a lot of time due to heat advisory, so far this year. They also lost several days at the beginning of the schoolyear due to lightning warnings for just about every afternoon for a week or so. Sadly, very little rain from all of that, but that's life in Central Texas. Wow what a day. I just woke up after getting home around 1:30 from getting back to the school, and unloading instruments and props., I'm definitely not in mid-season form yet, but it'll come. So proud of CP and all the other bands. I got to see Vandy and Rouse in Finals, they were both excellent as expected. Really looking forward to watching all of these shows grow and mature over the next 2 months, should be a fantastic marching band competition season. And now I think I'm going back to bed.

Box5 shows the prelim awards for free on Youtube, try this link below. The video just went live so it should be soon.

So glad to hear it, I know some of those parents and they're all very nice.

I think it's going to be after Westwood and they'll be using Westwood's front ensemble. Unfortunately no props for the Chaps this time.

Absolutely. Way better to get it out of the way now, than in UIL or San Antonio. Just got home after pit-packing for CP, I gotta tell you it's hotter than hades out there. I don't envy the bands going in block 2 but it's a REALLY good thing it'll be done before the true heat of the day. Gonna just chill in the A/C until we find out our performance time tonight, everybody enjoy the show. Finals are going to be pretty epic this year I think.

I really enjoyed your show last year, I got to watch at Area and was excited when y'all were picked to advance to State. Best of luck on Saturday, I'll be pit-packing for Cedar Park but I should be able to get back into the stadium to see Liberty Hill and Vandegrift. Sadly I'll miss Rouse, VR, CR, and RR. But I should be able to catch Leander in the 2nd grouping unless they need me back at the school for something.

It was brutal last night. Still close to 100 at kickoff. I'm NOT in Pit Pack shape yet, and discovered I need to drink about twice as much water daily. I have no idea how the kids do it, other than being young and invincible. The good news is the high temp for next week at BOA-RR is only supposed to be about 95. Nice and cool...

We just brought out the props for Cedar Park last night at one of our rented-stadium rehearsals at Gupton. They're going to look sharp. The front screens look good too, as far as front screens go. L Parts 1-2 look really good, a lot of new choreography that nobody's seen yet. Part 3 is still cleaning, and I don't think they'll march part 4 at BOA-RR. They usually don't finish installing it until late September. I anticipate a really tough battle for the top 4-5 spots, like last year. Should be a lot of fun for the public to watch!

Thanks for posting! I'm always down on the sidelines and never get to see these views until much later in the year. You'd think my wife would video for us, but she gets so caught up in the show she has no desire What actually happened was the semi trailer blew a tire in our parking lot. Good thing it wasn't on the road. We were able to get back to the band pad and then unloaded the entire thing into our box truck (would normally be for props but no props until next week). We needed another box truck and Leander had an extra one we could borrow. It took a while but ultimately we were able to get everything over to Gupton Stadium other than the synth and other electronics, plus front ensemble. But as you said, the Vandy band loaned us theirs, plus their electronics/mic system so at least one of the solos was able to be mic'd. Between generous loan of the Leander box truck and the Vandy front ensemble, it really is a case of the LISD being One Team, a family. I was incredibly impressed with how the kids and directors just reacted and adjusted, they were unflappable. It says a lot about those countless hours of training through the hot summer days. And like you, I've never seen CP look this good in week2 of the season. They're going to be ready for State and Grand Nationals. Anyway, glad you enjoyed the show, and it also didn't hurt that CP won the game 49-46 in 3OT. First time in 6 years the varsity have beaten Vandegrift.

Shows are looking pretty good. Between excessive heat and rain/lightning, many of the Central Texas bands lost a ton of outdoor practice days over the past 2 weeks. It doesn't seem to have impacted things too terribly.

Just start it on your own! That's how Dave Campbell did it. Or you could go the route Daniel Vaughn did with respect to writing about BBQ. He spent a lot of time independently researching and writing about it, and then eventually Texas Monthly brought him on staff as their "BBQ Editor." You could be the new Texas Monthly "Marching Band Editor."

9/6: Vandegrift 10/4: Rouse 10/18: Glenn 11/1: Leander

Didn't realize you were at UNT. One of my daughter's best friends is now a freshman French Horn/Mello there with you, he's from Cedar Park. He's one of my absolute favorite kids of all time, just a really great person, and we miss him here but hear he's loving it up there.

Cedar Park is likely to move up, unless/until LISD can build a new high school between CP and Vista Ridge.

I really feel like they could move all of it earlier, but at least we won't have any crazy 5 AM call times at the band hall this time.

I don't have any specific knowledge of the topic but I will say that I really enjoyed watching the 1A-3A shows streaming last year. I really love the enthusiasm of the kids and the interviews are great-- so many 1st generation band kids at small schools who never dreamed they'd get to compete in the Alamodome, and other heartwarming stories.

I think Leander and CP are going to surprise some folks. I've seen over half of CP's drill and they're already about 1.5 weeks ahead of where they were last year. It should be very put-together by the time we get to BOA-RR. And the band and guard are much larger than the last several years, it's going to be a spectacle. Interestingly they're not doing TMC or Waco or any other non-UIL competitions in between Round Rock and San Antonio. Since they're going to Grand Nationals this year, the directors decided to give them back some time in October.

A friend who is a parent/booster at Austin-Anderson said they're having to withdraw from BOA-San Antonio because they can't find enough charter buses available that day. And AISD won't allow them to use yellow school buses on schooldays due to the driver shortage in Austin. They're not ever really expected to advance but it still sucks for them, not getting to perform on the biggest stage.