Samuel Culper

Regarding LISD - Vista Ridge and Vandegrift will definitely move up to 6A. Leander is on the bubble and Cedar Park will definitely stay in 5A. Rouse will stay in 6A this cycle.

I don't see evidnece that BOA is trying all that hard.

Waiting until 10pm to decide on something that will require a 3am call time is insane.

It appears that Leander and Vista Ridge are facing this same restriction from their District, but they are not getting the same accomodation. And, as has been pointed out, they are farther away. How is that fair?

Amen. Given the weather situation you would think BOA would do a little more creative thinking.

Ok, that is messed up if some other band gets stuck with 7am and Bowie is allowed to move to mid afternoon.

I can confirm we heard the same story from the Vista Ridge staff.

This sucks.

Hard to say. Part of I-35 between Austin and San Antonio is closed due to flooding. What a mess.

Vista Ridge now scheduled for 8:45.

Leander band members are going to miss their senior night. Of course, given the weather, might not be a big loss.

I can confirm Vista Ridge has not left and there is no ETD right now.

Must be a firewall issue. :-/

Is the live blog working? When I click on the link I get a static page with no blog on it.

DS's show is "The Flight of Spring".

This is Vista Ridge's run from Monday's Area D Finals. FF to 2:40:

You've got quite a list of bands there thay will NOT finish ahead of Vista Ridge. :-)

Of course, on the day of it will all about the competition. Until that day, and after, the criticism is totally justified.

I understand the desire to give the 1A bands an audience, but it is being done at great cost to 5A bands and their families. It is NOT a reasonable trade-off. This was very poorly conceived, with a high level of disregard for the effect on competition, convenience, expense and class time for the 5A folks.

Most of what you are seeking has to come from the directors. It is clear that some directors/staffs are more ambitious than others. You say you are at a school with a brief history and that will be a factor, but what about the other high school(s) in the district? If there is a record of success there it will be an indicator of the commitment within the district to marching band and to hiring directors with the kind of ambition you seek. As an example of what I am talking about: Our staff has the field show picked by early Spring each year. They work with outside drill writers and consultants on developing the show ($). Each April the 8th graders zoned to the school come in for a week of after school practices on marching fundamentals, working with the directors and drum majors. Then they have a week of music practices with the veterans where they all work on the show music for the fall field show. During the summer all students are required to get the show music memorized and submit videos to the directors of themselves playing the music from memory. The passoffs are required to secure a spot on the field once summer band starts. This is just one example of the kind of stuff that has to come from the directors. As parents, or booster, there are really two major things you can do to help make it happen: 1 - Raise $. As much as possible. It's hard, we struggle with it each year, but money means drillwriters, clinicians, props, etc. 2 - Get as many parents involved as possible so as to take as much "nonsense" off the plates of the directors as you can. For example, directors should never have to worry about feeding kids, uniform cleaning, getting tshirts printed and distributed, maintaining student accounts, coordinating chaperones, collecting and organizing medical forms, first aid, etc., etc., etc. You need to have parents involved to cover all of this stuff so that the directors can concentrate on the music and the kids and the show. If you don't have a directorial staff that is interested in putting in the insane hours necessary to compete at a high level, there's not much you can do. I am constantly amazed at our staff's stamina. They get the absolute most out of those 8 hours they are allotted each week (and, btw, they never miss an opportunity to get more time on performance days) because of all of the other hours they put in. Good luck!

What difference would holding the competition at Jerry World make?

Just for comparison's sake, the population of Texas circa 1990 vs today is roughly 17 million vs 27 million.

I don't kust want to complain. I want somebody to amswer for why they thought this was a good idea to begin with. Why not do this on the 4A day?

Results will be more like 1am. If they go through Finals without a break, the last band will perform at 12:15.

Also, something missing in this argument: Where do you gove credit for difficulty? I have seen many people argue that in UIL judging it is all about clean marching and clean music. That can only be true to a point, otherwise there is no incentive for (non-BOA) bands to do anything other than simple drill and simple music. I am not saying McCallum's show was either, but DS's show is clearly significantly more difficult in terms of both drill and music. This is nothing against McCallum. I have seen their show four times now and thoroughly enjoy it. I find myself rooting for them because they are always so solid and are clearly working with fewer resources than many of the bands they compete against. Even if it is not in the rubric that UIL judges use, however, there is no realistic way for the difficulty of the undertaking to NOT have an effect of the scores. And, having said all of that I still feel that DS was musically stronger than McCallum. Significantly.