LostChoirGuy

I finally am able to start watching, and Westlake was a great first show to start with! Fantastic job!

Well, here we are- the night before San Antonio! I haven't really said much about my predictions for this event because I honestly haven't had any idea what my predictions were going to be. But, here is the best that I could come up with and a few thoughts to go along with them. 1. Flower Mound 2. Ronald Reagan 3. Leander 4. Claudia Taylor Johnson 5. Vandegrift 6. Hebron 7. Marcus 8. The Woodlands 9. Keller 10. Vista Ridge 11. Cedar Ridge 12. James Bowie 13. L.D. Bell 14. Coppell ------ 15. Cedar Park 16. Westwood 17. Westlake 18. Rouse 19. Wakeland 20. Vista Murrieta If there is anything that I have learned in the last few years of following this event it is that even when it seems that there are certain predictable ranges that groups will definitely fall into, there will always be surprises. I have tried my best to incorporate some of those surprises that I expect into my predictions. First, I must say that I have actually not seen many of the potential finalist shows at all this year. I purposefully decided to avoid watching videos of them after the first few weeks of the season because I wanted the performances to be fresh and new to me. Some of the ones that I have seen, I haven't seen since very early season videos. I did watch the Waco and DFW regionals and the Texas groups at STL. Ronald Reagan has my favorite show that I have seen this year, and while my initial instinct is to put them as the winner here, I have learned that Flower Mound seems to have mastered this contest over the past few years and I feel that they might just have the formula to take their show to another championship. The 3-6 spots were very hard to choose. None of them are deserving to place out of the top 5 and honestly I can see any of them earning a medal. Leander seems to be a less common choice here, but from what I saw of their show early season, I think it really has that factor that can differentiate itself from the rest of the shows here and be a standout, provided that they have cleaned effectively as the rest of their visual comes so naturally. Vandegrift looked so great early season and will definitely do well musically, but I don't think that they will still be above the rest of the pack with their visual scores as the others have cleaned their shows. CTJ is a mystery to me and I don't quite expect Hebron's show to fully blossom until Grand Nats where it will definitely be in strong contention for a medal. Most of the rest of these placements come from trends that I have noticed from groups in the past and how they do vs. expectations. Keller and Cedar Ridge seem to consistently be underrated. I feel pretty strongly about the first 13 bands being in finals and chose Coppell as the last finalist based on their Music. Their show seemed to have a lot of potential to me and I think they could really surprise us with a great showing. I would not shock me in the slightest if any of the other groups I listed below the line make it into finals though and there are probably another 5 groups or so that I could also see making a surprise appearance, though less likely. I am so excited for this to start! I have to work a few hours tomorrow, so I will miss the first block and a half and have plans in the evening so I will miss the last block, but other than that I should be able to watch all of the performances this weekend on Flo.

Are we looking at another LISD South medal sweep in 2021? Leander- Cedar Park- Rouse ? Or maybe a different order but something like that?

I am really curious to see how the content will be judged. Could we see some interesting results?

As far as I have seen, the replay on FloMarching lets you watch the shows with no audio.

I finally watched a video of Avon for the first time and I agree that their show is special. Their visual design is superb and the guard is phenomenal throughout the entire show. They also have some really great musical moments. But that narration makes me want to physically hurt someone. I thought you were all exaggerating, but its BAD. If they just reapeated it once every now and again in the show it would be fine, but every time the narrator speaks, they say the same thing like 5 different ways for "emphasis" or something and it is super obnoxious.

Which of these groups are going to BOA San Antonio this weekend?

This competition is as competitive as BOA DFW in my opinion.

I think this year's Keller show may be a lot like 2017 Keller. Not really anyone's favorite show and most people werent thinking much of them going into the contest, but they performed it so well in finals that they came out and gor 9th. I think this show has the potential to really show of the skill level of those students and get them another top 10 placement.

I was just about to post the same thing. So far the Mansfield schools are the most interesting that I have seen, though Birdville was surprisingly close to last year's 6A cutoff. Also, was FW Paschal already 6A? They are well over the cutoff but I always thought they were 5A.

Yikes that is early! Everything is an hour earlier for me here in Utah, too.

I really like this prediction.

Every band doing the same show sounds so sad. But the sightreading of the show sounds kinda fun actually. Maybe a 30 second portion separate from the field performance where every band gets the same 30 seconds of music and drill and they get judged on execution, 5 minutes of rehearsal work and re-execution. Edit: Also I know this is a ridiculous concept, I just think it would be hilarious to witness.

I am thinking that the seven judges referenced in a) would still judge the same fundamentals, right? There wouldn't be any judges over new captions like GE, just 3 marching and 4 music judges or something like that. If that is the case, I really like that proposal. We all discussed how important that is in an ordinal system last year after a single bad placement was shown could have a huge impact on placement (Round Rock for example).

A few adjustments are still being made to the schedule. I saw this week that Forney was added but didn't hear who dropped for them to get in.

Yeah, it seemed like every band member in the area got down and grabbed as many as they could find.

I'm very sad for Roma. It likely opens another spot for a central or north Texas band in finals.

I was always under the impression that bands dont actually have to compete at area to be counted in the total for state advancement spots? They just have to qualify. Is that true?

Westlake, UT is historically a AAAA band. They just split the school this year, so it could potentially be AAA. I dont expect it to be any lower than that.

Well, while you shouldnt compare scores between regionals because there are prone to be some differences due to the competition and trying to order bands correctly, scores still have a relative meaning. This is how superior ratings are given at UIL and contests that do things like that. Judges know roughly what might be deserving of a 15.0 in a caption as opposed to a 16.0 or 17.0 and should hopwfully stay pretty close to that.

I love that the stream stayed on for about a minute so we could see them break ranks. Usually they immediately turn off the stream, so I never get to see that.

That was a bigger gap between first and second than I would have expected.

Is this Keller's first caption award ever at a BOA event?

I posted earlier the only placements we can determine definitively (or at least the range of placements) without insider info right now. Edit: of course- I was assuming the classes of the finalist bands that werent class medalists, so I could be wrong. I believe that 7L and JJP are AAAA and Richland and BC are AAA.

I definitely get why Bowie did well. The kids do give it everything and they sound and look great. Watching them back to back, Keller's show is so much more exposed so it is really easy to see and hear all the flaws, but also easy to be blown away at the talent.