UIL 6A Area E 2024

[Axiviras]

18 hours ago, Texanhotshot said:

Foster and Fulshear did absolutely amazing, they definitely got robbed in my opinion. While I get UIL is about cleanliness, seems to be huge bias on the bigger bands for being just that, big. 

I highly doubt that, as Clear Brook in BOA standards is a 3A-class school that made 3rd at area while the other state-bound area bands are 4A. While there is a possibility for a bias, or inherent disadvantages to being smaller, there is no point saying band size is proportional to how well one does at uil. Lets just congratulate all the bands who did there best, and put on stellar preformances!

[BandAlumMom]

20 hours ago, Texanhotshot said:

Foster and Fulshear did absolutely amazing, they definitely got robbed in my opinion. While I get UIL is about cleanliness, seems to be huge bias on the bigger bands for being just that, big. 

So which bands that made state didn’t deserve to?  Because if you say that Foster and Fulshear got “robbed”, that necessarily means that you think someone else didn’t deserve to be ahead of them.  And since they were 8th and 10th in finals, presumably you mean several bands that were ahead of them didn’t deserve to be.

Obviously they did well, as they made finals.  But comments like this are by nature an insult to other bands, even if you don’t name them.

[BandAlumMom]

20 hours ago, Yacob said:

The top 5 spots were wack.

 

we knew Pearland was going to get 1st.

Dawson I have to say has a better show than Clear Brook and Dickinson.

i feel like the score between CB and Dickinson was very close. 
 

and I haven’t seen SFAs show so I have no comment on them.

I’m confused - it sounds like you agree with the top five?

[Yacob]

16 minutes ago, BandAlumMom said:

I’m confused - it sounds like you agree with the top five?

Sorry, what I meant to say with that post is spots 2-5 were basically a bloodbath in my opinion

[OrcaTab]

All schools did a great job, but it seemed like Geroge Ranch got robbed. Ridge Point did have a good show with Cloud Nine, but George Ranch was scoring over them throughout most of the season. I don't really know what happened, but they seemed to have a good show. I can't say much besides how do they have 28th and 12th in music. Also, good job with Clements managing to make it back in finals.

[BandAlumMom]

16 minutes ago, Yacob said:

Sorry, what I meant to say with that post is spots 2-5 were basically a bloodbath in my opinion

Gotcha - that makes sense. 

[Sharkstan]

14 hours ago, lizzard2027 said:

Can we take just a minute to focus on all the cool and unique show ideas? 

I'm gonna say Sam Rayburn had such a cool idea with the Medusa theme, and I loved how they literally carried the flutist off the field after she "got turned to stone". 🐍

Clear Brook also spinning the band kid inside the prop was so cool!  

Tianlong (Idk which school) was so cool! I loved the little dragon bridges, but it would have been SOOO cool to have a dragon head stage for soloists to stand on (that would probably cost a fortune tho )

I didn't understand Pearland's show (especially the circle things at the end) so can someone enlighten me? From what I figured, it has some sort of Greek theme. In any case, 14 sousaphones is crazy work, and a 50 person guard (maybe 40 or 60, I'm not good at counting) is actually crazy 😮 

Loved Cloud 9 from Ridgepoint! Such a cool theme, and the guard members are so nice 🥰

All in all, so many bands getting slept on because they weren't finalists or in the finalist bubble   (not taking the finalists down or saying these bands should've made finals, just want to appreciate all the show ideas!)

Congrats to all the state bands btw! (Loved the slides in Dawson's show!)

Thanks for the Tianlong shout out for Shadow Creek! We are excited to take the show on the road and perform at BOA San Antonio for the first time.

[TheSV-001Gamer]

Speaking of BOA Contests.

Looking over the Area Finalists this year, there are only 2 bands that don't attend BOA Contests at all or at least this year.

Pasadena Memorial and Clements. 

I really hope to see them do BOA in the future, they can do some good things. They have the talent!

[GlitterGirly]

2 hours ago, OrcaTab said:

All schools did a great job, but it seemed like Geroge Ranch got robbed. Ridge Point did have a good show with Cloud Nine, but George Ranch was scoring over them throughout most of the season. I don't really know what happened, but they seemed to have a good show. I can't say much besides how do they have 28th and 12th in music. Also, good job with Clements managing to make it back in finals.

Three bands had big jumps in scores like this from different judges. Those jumps show bad judging if all the judges but one are not on board that shows a bad judge in general. The bands affected by this mainly were George Ranch, Elkins, and Clear Falls. This one really low score from one judge dropped these amazing groups placements drastically. These bands have beaten a good chunk of these bands at other competitions. George Ranch got 4th in finals at Gulf Coast Marching Invitational so we know they are not a 20th place band and now they should have had a better placement. Obviously they are not better than Clear Brook or Dickinson or Clear Lake as those were the bands that beat them but they beat out bands like Clear falls, Grand Oaks, Clear Springs, and Travis. The judges definitely did not give them the scores that they earned.

[TheSV-001Gamer]

32 minutes ago, GlitterGirly said:

Three bands had big jumps in scores like this from different judges. Those jumps show bad judging if all the judges but one are not on board that shows a bad judge in general. The bands affected by this mainly were George Ranch, Elkins, and Clear Falls. This one really low score from one judge dropped these amazing groups placements drastically. These bands have beaten a good chunk of these bands at other competitions. George Ranch got 4th in finals at Gulf Coast Marching Invitational so we know they are not a 20th place band and now they should have had a better placement. Obviously they are not better than Clear Brook or Dickinson or Clear Lake as those were the bands that beat them but they beat out bands like Clear falls, Grand Oaks, Clear Springs, and Travis. The judges definitely did not give them the scores that they earned.

Welcome to Area Judging you must be new.

Clear Falls did the exact opposite of what you are talking about. 19,19,7,17,19. They had one judge who liked them. 

George Ranch was a 25,12,15,28,18.

It really wasn't just one judge.

Elkins was a 10,14,17,26,23.

Looks like visually they weren't good at all. With those visual judges.

Look, Area has always been like this, judges gaps are very common. And I've said this before, even before Area. Your past results in other competitions. Do not affect how you do at Area at all, because the judges don't care how you did. It might be a guide on what will happen, but what happens on Area is what will actually affect your score at Area.

But at the end of the day, we can just appreciate these band programs for everyone in the Area. You don't need to 5 judges to know you aren't as good as others.

[clarinet77]

42 minutes ago, GlitterGirly said:

Three bands had big jumps in scores like this from different judges. Those jumps show bad judging if all the judges but one are not on board that shows a bad judge in general. The bands affected by this mainly were George Ranch, Elkins, and Clear Falls. This one really low score from one judge dropped these amazing groups placements drastically. These bands have beaten a good chunk of these bands at other competitions. George Ranch got 4th in finals at Gulf Coast Marching Invitational so we know they are not a 20th place band and now they should have had a better placement. Obviously they are not better than Clear Brook or Dickinson or Clear Lake as those were the bands that beat them but they beat out bands like Clear falls, Grand Oaks, Clear Springs, and Travis. The judges definitely did not give them the scores that they earned.

Unfortunately area judging is usually like this, especially because the prelims judging is mainly focused on getting the “right bands” into finals, meaning that as the bands get further from the finals mark, the scores tend to get more inconsistent.

Additionally, you referenced a contest that was over a month before the area contest. Many bands didn’t have their full shows on the field at that time, or changed them drastically in the month between contests. It is also a bad habit to compare results from contests with entirely different judging panels especially over a long period of time.

Although the judging may not have been perfect (it never really is), saying one group got underscored is highly opinionated. 
 

Congrats to all the bands that competed this past weekend and remember that the results don’t define you or your program!

[Online Marcher]

Maybe in the near future we'll see a change to the judging at the area level. Just this past season the UIL advisory committee approved "in concept" to reconfigure the 5 area judges into brass, woodwind, percussion, visual ensemble, and visual individual. This will hopefully be implemented next year. I think that this will definitely improve the judging(especially for this area lol) at the area level and make it a lot easier on the judges, instead of having them judge all of the music of each band. This is also very similar to the judging pannel at the state level, except without the music ensemble & content and design judges. I'm also pretty sure that this change is only for 5A and 6A Area contests.

 

[lizzard2027]

28 minutes ago, Online Marcher said:

Maybe in the near future we'll see a change to the judging at the area level. Just this past season the UIL advisory committee approved "in concept" to reconfigure the 5 area judges into brass, woodwind, percussion, visual ensemble, and visual individual. This will hopefully be implemented next year. I think that this will definitely improve the judging(especially for this area lol) at the area level and make it a lot easier on the judges, instead of having them judge all of the music of each band. This is also very similar to the judging panel at the state level, except without the music ensemble & content and design judges. I'm also pretty sure that this change is only for 5A and 6A Area contests.

 

WOAH! That's a cool idea - I'm assuming that the visual ensemble judge would judge guard & drill?

There are some other cool ideas on this email; I'm hoping they add a guard judge! I feel like that would be fun (maybe thats bc im a guard kid)  

[BandAlumMom]

2 minutes ago, lizzard2027 said:

WOAH! That's a cool idea - I'm assuming that the visual ensemble judge would judge guard & drill?

There are some other cool ideas on this email; I'm hoping they add a guard judge! I feel like that would be fun (maybe thats bc im a guard kid)  

 

1 hour ago, Online Marcher said:

Maybe in the near future we'll see a change to the judging at the area level. Just this past season the UIL advisory committee approved "in concept" to reconfigure the 5 area judges into brass, woodwind, percussion, visual ensemble, and visual individual. This will hopefully be implemented next year. I think that this will definitely improve the judging(especially for this area lol) at the area level and make it a lot easier on the judges, instead of having them judge all of the music of each band. This is also very similar to the judging pannel at the state level, except without the music ensemble & content and design judges. I'm also pretty sure that this change is only for 5A and 6A Area contests.

 

Call me crazy, but where does that leave judging music ensemble?  Surely having a good ensemble sound should be the priority?  

[BandAlumMom]

3 hours ago, GlitterGirly said:

Three bands had big jumps in scores like this from different judges. Those jumps show bad judging if all the judges but one are not on board that shows a bad judge in general. The bands affected by this mainly were George Ranch, Elkins, and Clear Falls. This one really low score from one judge dropped these amazing groups placements drastically. These bands have beaten a good chunk of these bands at other competitions. George Ranch got 4th in finals at Gulf Coast Marching Invitational so we know they are not a 20th place band and now they should have had a better placement. Obviously they are not better than Clear Brook or Dickinson or Clear Lake as those were the bands that beat them but they beat out bands like Clear falls, Grand Oaks, Clear Springs, and Travis. The judges definitely did not give them the scores that they earned.

 

2 hours ago, TheSV-001Gamer said:

Welcome to Area Judging you must be new.

Clear Falls did the exact opposite of what you are talking about. 19,19,7,17,19. They had one judge who liked them. 

George Ranch was a 25,12,15,28,18.

It really wasn't just one judge.

Elkins was a 10,14,17,26,23.

Looks like visually they weren't good at all. With those visual judges.

Look, Area has always been like this, judges gaps are very common. And I've said this before, even before Area. Your past results in other competitions. Do not affect how you do at Area at all, because the judges don't care how you did. It might be a guide on what will happen, but what happens on Area is what will actually affect your score at Area.

But at the end of the day, we can just appreciate these band programs for everyone in the Area. You don't need to 5 judges to know you aren't as good as others.

SV001-Gamer has a good response to this.  None of the three schools you mentioned had one judge give them a much lower score than the others - his discussion is spot on.

And you should never assume that you’ll place in the same order as previous competitions.  Some schools have their show done early but then don’t add as much later, while other schools didn’t have their full show until October and kept adding.  Sometimes someone has a less good run.  Sometimes the scoring system is different - there are any number of reasons other than “bad judging” that could explain why one band placed ahead of another band one week but behind them another.  And if there’s “bad judging”, how do you know it was this week and not the previous contest?

The reality is that a lot of schools have really stepped up and the overall quality of bands has improved a great deal in this area the last few years.  And the judges are really trying to make sure they get the right bands going to state - so if you’re 13th or 20th or 25th is less important to them than making sure the top five are “correct” at the end.  (Yes, I know that sucks.)  And a lot of those bands could beat each other on a given day.  You just don’t want to read too much into that 20th place:  if you worked hard and left it all on the field, you should be proud. And you can keep working on getting better next year.

[Syntop1cc]

2 hours ago, TheSV-001Gamer said:

Welcome to Area Judging you must be new.

Clear Falls did the exact opposite of what you are talking about. 19,19,7,17,19. They had one judge who liked them. 

George Ranch was a 25,12,15,28,18.

It really wasn't just one judge.

Elkins was a 10,14,17,26,23.

Looks like visually they weren't good at all. With those visual judges.

Look, Area has always been like this, judges gaps are very common. And I've said this before, even before Area. Your past results in other competitions. Do not affect how you do at Area at all, because the judges don't care how you did. It might be a guide on what will happen, but what happens on Area is what will actually affect your score at Area.

But at the end of the day, we can just appreciate these band programs for everyone in the Area. You don't need to 5 judges to know you aren't as good as others.

It felt to me that visual was all over the place. Not gonna say who cause im not saying this to be mean to them, but there was one band placed not far out of finals that flat out had no choreo or visuals in their show. It was just marching, and even then they never made huge recognizable shapes. So it's like how did that get a higher visual score than some of these shows full of clean choreo and forms.

[clarinet77]

45 minutes ago, Syntop1cc said:

It felt to me that visual was all over the place. Not gonna say who cause im not saying this to be mean to them, but there was one band placed not far out of finals that flat out had no choreo or visuals in their show. It was just marching, and even then they never made huge recognizable shapes. So it's like how did that get a higher visual score than some of these shows full of clean choreo and forms.

I would research the UIL scoring guidelines to understand more about the visual scores.

Choreo is not as much of a factor in UIL judging because the UIL judging doesn’t include a visual general effect category which is mainly what choreo and recognizable shapes fits under.

Instead, UIL judging is based heavily on timing and the flow of visual concepts, and the difficulty of the drill while marching and playing. This means that even if a band has no choreo, as long as they have consistent timing and a clean performance of high visual demand, they can score well.

I’m not saying that the visual scores were perfect as judging is very subjective, but there is reasoning behind rankings.

Also bringing up the idea of visual scores being all over the place and mentioning only one example seems a little personal.

https://www.uiltexas.org/files/music/UIL_5A-6A_State_Judge_Manual_(7-judge).pdf

[Syntop1cc]

1 hour ago, clarinet77 said:

I would research the UIL scoring guidelines to understand more about the visual scores.

Choreo is not as much of a factor in UIL judging because the UIL judging doesn’t include a visual general effect category which is mainly what choreo and recognizable shapes fits under.

Instead, UIL judging is based heavily on timing and the flow of visual concepts, and the difficulty of the drill while marching and playing. This means that even if a band has no choreo, as long as they have consistent timing and a clean performance of high visual demand, they can score well.

I’m not saying that the visual scores were perfect as judging is very subjective, but there is reasoning behind rankings.

Also bringing up the idea of visual scores being all over the place and mentioning only one example seems a little personal.

https://www.uiltexas.org/files/music/UIL_5A-6A_State_Judge_Manual_(7-judge).pdf

True, i keep forgetting how different uil and boa are when it comes to visual stuff. And no I was not calling out a single group to be mean towards them. It's just I have only been able to get my hands on so many videos. And that happened to be one of them. So if it came off as me targeting a group I'm sorry cause that was not what I was trying to say.

[Syntop1cc]

On a different note. Anyone have the breakdown of the recaps and is willing to share them? Would be very much appreciated.

[psidlepicks]

I understand that the judging panels and the judging concepts from the Gulf coast contest and area are different but the difference from where George ranch ended up in gulf coast to area is drastic and thats just a week difference. Insane things happen at area i guess.

[FancyPenguin]

This response is a little bit on the late side but congratulations to Pearland, Dawson, Dickinson, Clear Brook, and SFA on making the state marching contest and congrats to all the bands that competed.

 

On a different note, this area was just as surprising in results as we expected Clements placing 6^th in prelims beating foster Fulshear and clear lake and upsetting Pasadena memorial after they were beat by the maverick band in all contests. Dawson one point away from beating Pearland that would’ve silenced the crowd if Dawson placed higher and dethroned Pearland.

Brazoswood 24^th was a surprise as they were in contention for a finals spot Blaming this on the staff change???

Clear falls dropping below deer park and Travis when they were also predicted to make finals. Was their show based off mostly GE and did well on a boa scoring rubric but not UIL as they care more about cleanliness?

Are we expecting Foster and Fulshear to place higher next year as this is their first year in the area? Or are they not at a state skill level yet for 6A?

This is not suppose to bring down any of these programs as they are all great bands but just wondering everyone's opinion on this years results and what we might see next year but congrats again to all the bands that competed.

[TheSV-001Gamer]

54 minutes ago, FancyPenguin said:

This response is a little bit on the late side but congratulations to Pearland, Dawson, Dickinson, Clear Brook, and SFA on making the state marching contest and congrats to all the bands that competed.

 

On a different note, this area was just as surprising in results as we expected Clements placing 6^th in prelims beating foster Fulshear and clear lake and upsetting Pasadena memorial after they were beat by the maverick band in all contests. Dawson one point away from beating Pearland that would’ve silenced the crowd if Dawson placed higher and dethroned Pearland.

Brazoswood 24^th was a surprise as they were in contention for a finals spot Blaming this on the staff change???

Clear falls dropping below deer park and Travis when they were also predicted to make finals. Was their show based off mostly GE and did well on a boa scoring rubric but not UIL as they care more about cleanliness?

Are we expecting Foster and Fulshear to place higher next year as this is their first year in the area? Or are they not at a state skill level yet for 6A?

This is not suppose to bring down any of these programs as they are all great bands but just wondering everyone's opinion on this years results and what we might see next year but congrats again to all the bands that competed.

Pasadena Memorial locked tf in for finals, being able to beat Clements and get 7th. 

I couldn't see them get any higher tbh.

Same for Lake locking in and getting 6th, which would of been state for Lake if hightower made Area and it was 30.

That would of been cool to see, it is what it is tho, onto State!

[MadHornist]

1 hour ago, FancyPenguin said:

Are we expecting Foster and Fulshear to place higher next year as this is their first year in the area? Or are they not at a state skill level yet for 6A?

My expectation from watching both bands is that they will adjust and be more competitive next year.  They both have the skills and quality direction, IMHO.

[GlitterGirly]

On 11/4/2024 at 1:02 PM, clarinet77 said:

Unfortunately area judging is usually like this, especially because the prelims judging is mainly focused on getting the “right bands” into finals, meaning that as the bands get further from the finals mark, the scores tend to get more inconsistent.

Additionally, you referenced a contest that was over a month before the area contest. Many bands didn’t have their full shows on the field at that time, or changed them drastically in the month between contests. It is also a bad habit to compare results from contests with entirely different judging panels especially over a long period of time.

Although the judging may not have been perfect (it never really is), saying one group got underscored is highly opinionated. 
 

Congrats to all the bands that competed this past weekend and remember that the results don’t define you or your program!

Gulf Coast was the weekend before area acutally and i get they have different judging but in general the judging was all over the place at this competition the bands who made finals deserved it but some bands did deserve did be higher on the list than they were i think everyone had phenomenal shows no matter their placement everyone did well and congrats and good luck to those who made state

[MarchingThings]

On 11/4/2024 at 12:11 PM, TheSV-001Gamer said:

Speaking of BOA Contests.

Looking over the Area Finalists this year, there are only 2 bands that don't attend BOA Contests at all or at least this year.

Pasadena Memorial and Clements. 

I really hope to see them do BOA in the future, they can do some good things. They have the talent!

Clements used to regularly do it, but with the rezoning of FBISD and the inconsistent placement in 2021, I believe they decided it wasnt a priority as i believe their director isnt fond of sending the kids to a competition where they more than likely wont final in. I could be wrong but clements used to be a BOA regular