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New regionals plus the top end competition at the contest formerly known as BOA Austin is ridiculous, so there was always a small chance for one or two bubble bands to make finals. Now Waco and San Marcos gives those bands a better chance at finals, which is great for getting a second round of eyes on your program and is generally more fun for the kids. I don't blame the directors.

I don't know if there's a public one with sound. The one I saw was shared with me in private, so I don't feel comfortable sharing it with others. That's also why I'm being a little skimpy with the details. 😶

I liked NL and SS shows last year. It was an interesting clash of different philosophies. I can’t find anything online for NL. I did find a parent preview for SS. Cool show. I am going to watch the Melissa Showcase. Hopefully get to see everyone there. I saw that NL is playing Canton this Friday. That’s gonna be a great halftime.

any video of tomball memorial?

Does anyone have a video of Wakeland or Lebanon Trail?

Can I get it once you have it

well certain POCs i could def concede. i don't think Carmel does as much tricky playing while marching as Hebron or Vandy, for example, esp w/ the fast musical passages that im unsure Carmel could do even standing still. but then in the macro, when Carmel's show picks up, there's sooo much going on at once that i think any band w/ an 8 hr rule would have trouble cleaning it. hence the 12+ hrs a week of practicing, or whatever it is lol. don't think they'd do more than 8 hrs if they didnt have to, unless the staff gets paid by the hour lol.

They have 600 in their middle school band program I’m not 100% or anything but I heard from a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend so

San Marcos is what happened lol

Are you sure they are marching 170? That doesn’t seem right. They marched like 50 last year.

And yea celina’s theme is royalty, they’re playing howls moving castle and some olivia rodrigo song or smtn.. they only have 8 trumpets though out of 170 so that’s a problem Not sure, saw a clip on facebook.. looked really boring, I really only liked their 3rd act music last year, but the drill made it

170?! Wow What is North Lamar's show this year?

From what I know from sources - Celina is marching 170 (going to be a nightmare to clean) SS is super solid but parking and barking NL is just downright boring but good as usual Havent seen anything about canton, but very curious: last time they didn’t make finals they came back to win

I’ll have one of McKinney North next Wednesday, Ill send in DMs like the Lone Star guy lol

I LOVE it! I've seen their show, by the way. And they look GREAT!

I opened up a can of off-topic worms, it seems! I am genuinely curious about your perspective, @ChristopherRoden, since your two points taken together seem to suggest that the top 20ish visual programs from Texas are nearly matched to Avon's and Carmel's in those considerations that @packwick mentioned. I feel like even just guard alone makes that stance hard to defend. But then maybe you simply have your own set of considerations? Or value certain ones more strongly than others? You are certainly correct that it's a very subjective activity, even for judges!

Only 15 bands to Boa Austin(Round Rock) this year? What happened, last year it was like double the size

1. I’m saying that just about all of the top tier Texas groups have comparable visual programs. 2. I simply disagree. And that’s okay! This is a subjective activity and neither of us are judges (as far as I know) so we can both take what we said for what they are: opinions.

I was wrong about Tomball Memorial's design team. Drill is by Greg Dalton. Music is arranged by Brandon Smith, no longer Richard Saucedo. They sound good!

ppl get so salty about the rehearsal stuff, but i think the fact that TX bands keep up so well despite the obvious handicap is a big feather in their cap. so, if you look at stuff from multiple shows from tx and compare it to one Avon show, then there's no difference? lol. not sure that's a fair comparison. personally, i don't think the complexity or difficult gap is big, not as big as several yrs ago for sure, but im also hard pressed to think of a band out of tx that has the same degree of layering, detailing, simultaneous demands, advanced choreo, and world class guard skills in one package. and if Avon's and Carmel's vis programs weren't so special, they wouldn't be winning those captions constantly.

It wouldn’t be Leander without electronics issues. 🥴 I hope all the kids just take it in stride and keep working on themselves, trying to get a little better each and every day. We fans don’t expect perfection! We just want to see the kids performing well and enjoying themselves. After all…#itsjustband. 😉

I really don’t think their visual programs are any more complex than any of the top 20 Texas visual programs, sorry. edit: Last year and the year before, yes. Avon especially had a stunning visual program compared to top Texas groups. This year, after watching their show, and most of the highest tier Texas bands, I could not find one visual moment that a Texas band isn’t doing something similar to at the exact same level. Even the amount of difficult visual moments is very comparable. Carmel is the same story but the past few years have really not been anything special visually.

Probably in a week or two before the comp. I’m imagining their waiting to make sure all schools that are going or considering to pay before making the schedule since there’s like 3 other comps in the DFW area this same day (Boa Bedford, Wylie, Don Hanna)

That extra rehearsal time also allows them to take on more complex visual programs than what we see from most, if not all, Texas programs. This is part of the reason why I take early videos of Avon and Carmel with a grain of salt, because they have the rehearsal time to clean those complex programs and make major adjustments, if needed. So, they might not seem so impressive right now, but by late season... 👀