takigan

Well keep in mind who they're up against....Hebron has always been a visual powerhouse....so has LD Bell (former GN Visual caption winner). Getting 4th in visual behind those 2 bands isn't an unreasonable assumption despite the fact they won visual in Austin. Also look at how high the Visual Ensemble judge ranked LD Bell (.7 lead over his #2 pick--HUGE lead....and that same judge ranked Round Rock 7th...roughly .7 behind Hebron and Flower Mound)....if another judge had been judging, Round Rock would probably have gotten at least 3rd in visual. I honestly don't think Marcus is performing any worse than they usually....well maybe a little bit worse in visual. The fact they grabbed the Music Caption in prelims is indicative of them being capable of the same unmatched sound they always have. Hebron and Flower Mound are just freaks....they've been leapfrogging their way to the top over the past few years; their outclassing Marcus is due to their rise...it doesn't have anything to do with Marcus slipping up. I think the same thing about The Woodlands getting 3rd at Houston actually. Clearly Reagan stepped it up, because they've been hopping their way to the top as well. And Claudia Taylor Johnson?....they've risen in the rankings year after year since they opened without ever falling.....their rise has tapered off this year and they're settling into their true capability....which happens to be just slightly ahead of where the Woodlands is at.

Finals at San Antonio isn't just going to be insanely competitive....it's going to be a joy to experience in the audience. There are so many great, well written shows this year (more than usual I'd say).

- Cedar Park's Tuba feature of "In the Hall of the Mountain King" - Leander's opener (and really their whole show) - Ronald Reagan's ballad - Hendrickson's whole show (though their flags were spot on) - Seven Lakes' Water Night ballad - Conroe's show....just due to the mindblitz of it all. - Clear Falls' Baritone soloists playing Firebird on top of the main theme from "How to Train Your Dragon" - Aledo's ending at BOA Austin (it may have just been the end of their ballad).

I would agree that most (2/3) of the prelims groups have at least "some sort" of closer. But 1/3 is still like 10 groups, which I think is fair number to say don't have a "complete" show. Some schools probably hid it well with some kind of tag ending. I'd say all but a couple in finals had their whole show out. But this is what used to be "week 1 BOA" (with Arlington on "week 2"). The years Houston was on week 2, pretty much everybody had a full working show.

Crosby beat Tomball Memorial at Galena Park. My vote is for Barbers Hill, Tomball Memorial, Crosby. The 4th band really could be just about anybody. Caney Creek or Lumberton is a pretty honest guess though.

It's interesting to note that despite not hearing much about Marcus yet this year, the fact that Hebron is getting tons of attention and hype, and Hebron beating Marcus at Denton last year.....Marcus is still actually the favorite to win over Hebron at Arlington this year based on predictions.

Nooo! Why'd they get rid of the flute soloist?

I'd say roughly 1/3 of the bands still don't have their complete UIL cut of the show performance ready yet... Which is about typical actually.

His Twitter page is a neverending hype train over the solo. https://twitter.com/mirnoahkhan

7 bands had penalties in prelims: Bwood - 0.3 Morton Ranch - 0.4 Clear Lake - 0.5 Cy-Fair - 0.1 Keller - 0.5 Spring - 0.2 Langham Creek - 0.5 ...that's pretty unusual. Austin had 3 (very windy, shorter shows), McAllen had 4 (rainy, also shorter shows). More than one regional this year didn't have any (Bowling Green, OH & Monroeville, PA to name 2). To have 7 on a clear day with little wind and ideal show lengths is pretty unusual.

"bet jand"..... Clearly you're a ninja .....a ninja speaking in 3rd person.

Not a fan of that synth fill at 0:51 and 1:04 in Leander's show. Too much distortion. I don't know if they got the EQ right, added more voices or more voice synth to the choral section during the intro, but I feel like that section has really fleshed out in the past few weeks.

5:51 is the beginning of where Reagan pulls their material. I'm not a super huge fan of his voice, but the section where the full orchestra comes in and starts to build from 6:57 - 8:35 does a pretty good job of capturing what the ballad actually sounds like.

No issues. I just didn't get to the stadium until about 11:15. Didnt feel like waking up at 6am. Sorry.

Live Blog should still be going on today....just a little later in the morning. Apologies to any early bird bands who were hoping for some commentary.

Added Westlake Festival to predictions. Go vote!

I don't think there is (Alex?). Like say if we dropped Clear Creek from the list, everyone who predicted Clear Creek in finals would have gaping holes in their prediction "ballot". Best case, it wouldn't be fair for those who submitted their predictions before the band(s) was dropped. Worse case, it would screw up the algorithm that calculates the scores for the game and possibly crash it since there would be a band being voted for that isn't on the list. The fact that bands are regularly added/dropped was the reason we used to wait until just a few days before the contest before posting each event instead of weeks before. Then people complained that events weren't getting posted or posted too late, or something would be wrong and it would be too late to fix it. I think the current way is the best way, and with the new way Alex set it up to calculate scores where it still gives you partial credit for not getting the placement exactly right, is a great way to deal with the problem of bands that should be on the list but aren't.

I love old threads. especially this one from the BOA forum where peeps who marched in the Lassiter and PCEP 2002 shows try to calculate how many hours they spent in rehearsal each week from mid-July to Grand Nationals. In that 18 week period they practiced an average of ~22 hours per week (more for August but still close to the 20 number in September, October and November). Essentially 4 hours per evening on every available evening plus all-day on any open Saturday.

I felt like Bowie was champion material during prelims (at least from the perspective of music....I know good music, and although I know good visual when I see it, I can't really pin it down to a ranking like a visual tech/designer/judge can....I don't have that background and I'm not looking at the visual so much as I take notes as I watch/listen anyway). Regardless, I did not feel that way during finals (Bowie being champion material I mean), especially with the other top tier bands performing around them. I don't have the long term presence of mind like Daniel does to say something like "Their prelims performance was better than finals etc", which is why I rarely comment on that fact like he does. Sometimes I can tell, but not usually. In the heat of the competition where bands are going one after another and I'm typing stuff up I can keep track of relativistic nuances like that, but once the stadium's cleared out and I've had something to eat, I've already forgotten the nitty gritty of each band's performance and all that really remains is the general impression of how they compared with each other as a ranking in my head. In any case, whether it was because the other bands turned it up more in Finals, or Bowie didn't turn it up as much or did worse, I don't really know since that's not how I look at it. Figuring out who I felt was the best band out of the top 5 in finals was extremely tough....tougher than it usually is. My money was on Cedar Park because their music was so ridiculously spot on for this early. Though after seeing the point spread between the top 5 in Finals I don't feel so bad--the judges couldn't decide either .... Round Rock's placing surprised me entirely (and there's usually that one band at every contest that does this).....After looking at the recap, I realized that Round Rock won Visual with a .5 lead (pretty considerable for this early of a regional with a 2.2 point spread in Total Visual across the entire Top 10). They musically did better than I expected (4th in music--I had them 6th) and their performance actually didn't strike me as a performance that could win it all in the same way I felt about Cedar Park, Leander or Vandegrift. Still a very fun contest. And I loved the venue. I need to attend BOA Austin more often.

https://youtu.be/lXqrNHLL8l0?t=6m49s I miss the old Westfield. The old Westfield that turned their shakos around to look "gansta" and bring rappers onto the field.

I was convinced it wasn't a synth. But I was leaning in my seat straining my eyes trying to find the guitar player and I couldn't find them, so I just assumed it was coming from the synth.

So where do y'all like to sit in the audience when attending a marching show? Up against the press box right on the 50? Right up at the front/field level where it's close and personal? Maybe somewhere in the middle to get the best of both worlds? Does it depend on the stadium? Share your thoughts....

USBands contests are the major ones that come to mind for this rule. If you submit a predictions request for USBands contests, they won't be approved. That's nothing against them (We love YEA and their programs!), our system was just designed with the Prelims-Finals format in mind (or formats similar enough to it where there's a clear grand champion, 2nd place, 3rd etc.) Also, remember to double check spelling...and if the school is named after a Texas hero or political icon (Travis, Bowie, Austin, MacArthur, Lee, Nimitz etc.) try to include the city name with the school. We edit the submissions before we post them, but it's easy to overlook. Help us out! One more thing....if you're frustrated with the Predictions score page not being updated quick enough it's probably because we don't have a full list of results for that contest yet immediately on hand. If you have them or know where to get them, post or link us to them in the appropriate contest forum and someone will get on it eventually.

1. Bowie 2. Round Rock 3. Leander 4. Vandegrift 5. Cedar Ridge 6. Cedar Park 7. Aledo 8. Winston Churchill 9. Vista Ridge 10. Westlake

I think they meant to put Central LaFourche. They're a Louisiana school of about 1,300 students just outside of New Orleans. Lone Star will have 2 LA schools competing, Central LaFourche and Lafayette. Not unusual to see at a smaller contest near the state lines, but very cool to see at one of the larger non-BOA contests here in the city.