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i guuuess u could say that the '97 marching show was their Westworld. hahahaha. also.... i👏love👏Holy👏Sack👏 a small handful of IW guards have the "sport" part down, Sack is pretty much the only one that consistently gets the "art" part right. always thought provoking. when the baby directors ask me about staging, im like, here's Sack '96. or here's Sack '18. study it, child! clear, interesting, musical, dynamic, ugh, subliiiime. why dey in their underwear? dunno, dont care, it's sooo expressive. they're baring their souls, hon! Blue Devils '96 can suck it, i don't care about scores!!!

Both Austin and Bedford will be exciting. Luckily I live about a 15 minute drive from Kelly Reeves. Having spectated this for years and I feel blessed. It's been a golden era for HS marching bands in an area. Bedford is a great show for a top half/bottom half contest. It's also a great place for fans to comfortably watch the contest. Much better than Kelly Reeves for the people in the stands all day. Plus the PA at Kelly Reeves is possibly the worst in all of Texas for a contest. You'd figure that the Round Rock ISD could fund a new PA system but I guess that's not on their radar. There's only 1 show and it's non-BOA in the country that has a higher band for band performance level and fortunately it's even closer to me than Kelly Reeves. That show is the Leander Festival of Bands. Last year was a madhouse like I've not seen before. It's not a contest but it's a celebration for the middle and high school programs. Plus getting the hear and feel: Leander Vandegrift Vista Ridge Cedar Park Glenn Rouse and all of the middle school bands play together at the end of the show is almost as powerful as when DCI finalists all played at finals award ceremonies.

Just a jungle gym? Not an entire amusement park? 🙃😅 I'm very excited for this weekend. Our two final Texas WGI regionals -- one in Dallas, which will be streamed, and another in San Antonio. I'm looking forward to seeing some of these DFW guards for the first time. I'm also eager to catch Blessed Sacrament at the streamed Pennsylvania event. They are currently seeded 1st in Independent World. I wouldn't mind a Blessed Sacrament win at Dayton. They've been around since the beginning and are usually near the top. They've only won once before, I think. 1990? I'd have to look that up. Their shows are always very classy and superbly performed.

oh def. my current prediction is Tarpon winning at Dayton by 2 points. im thinkin week 7 = Carmel + Avon peaking around 91 and Tarpon w/ something like 93, w/ all 3 guards overtaking twhs in seeding. they only need to cross a 90.5 for that, tho twhs may also score higher than 90.5 if they had a week 7 score. final score at Dayton, tarpon probably around a 95 but maybe they'll be more generous this year. other 3 i don't know yet. 2nd place 93ish. tarpon's not doing anything i haven't seen before but it's clean, has good staging clarity, good set design, and is mostly enjoyable besides the annoying thuddingly obvious narration, tho uuuusually their shows are even more try-hard than this design wise, so this is kiiinda a nice change of pace for them, ya know not being blasted w/ a jungle gym of set pieces. the other three will need to make some preeetty significant design adjustments to catch up or at least narrow the gap. pluuuus be a lot cleaner and more uniform. we shall see....

Also, plan on watching most if not all of Dallas this weekend, so I’ll post on the groups when I can! Gonna be an exciting one, and good luck to everyone performing!

Finally got some free time this afternoon to catch up on some of the worlds groups, and my god, that Tarpon Show is so freaking impressive! I was amazed and entertained ever since second! Avon,Carmel and Woodlands are also incredible, but if worlds was this weekend, I’d for sure have tarpon winning. Of course I’m personally rooting for woodlands, but I mean wow, tarpon is already so clean! It’s just so unbelievable to me how talented some of these guards are! So happy I finally started learning and watching wgi, and I’m so excited for Dayton!

No way to know how this will affect the finals in these competitions until this continues to happen for a few years. What it may do is give the groups that don't do well at BOA and do do well at State a better opportunity to make a finals every year. It's a lot of travelling and expense to do this every year and that may be the biggest factor in any changes in attendance. Personally as a fan, I prefer to watch the BOA competitions as they are the full experience of the marching arts. State is a subset of them.

I think Hebron may have withdrawn from Dayton. 😭 I'll need to edit the original list of participants later. There have been a few changes since I posted it, like Eastlake dropping back down into A.