LHSbandDad

Typically the upper deck (300 level) is not open for prelims. Sometimes it is opened when the lower bowl fills up for Drum Major retreat on Saturday afternoon when all the bands start coming in for announcements.

I think they sell them at the box office on Saturday. I have always bought in advance but I have always observed the box office open and people buying tickets. There are usually empty seats in the upper deck so I don't know why you would not be able to buy reserved the day of. Good luck & Enjoy!!

You have two choices. Option A is as you described above with lines forming right after announcements and the stampede begins thereafter. Option B (which I prefer) is to buy reserved seats in the upper deck for finals. This allows us to go to the Riverwalk for dinner and stroll back to our seats in time for the first band. Depending on your situation and seating preference, those are the main two choices.

Interesting....when I watched Avon in Finals of Indy last week the narration confused me. I kept thinking a feature or solo was going to only consist of an eight note jingle or a song with only eight notes in ir or a famous song that we all were supposed to know with eight repeating notes. When the songs I heard had way more than eight notes I was confused. I asked my son about it and he explained it to me that it was the eight notes on a scale. So for what that is worth, I missed the whole point while he got it on the first try. Despite that distracting scavenger hunt going on in my brain, I did love the show especially the closer.

In addition to what banddad84 said above, I would also point out that there will very likely be 10-15 bands that don't make finals this weekend that would easily have made finals in St. Louis and Indy Super Regionals that happened 1-2 weeks prior. This competition is stacked with good bands, Prosper being one of them. Good luck this weekend and thanks for representing Texas so well at GN last year!!

Great job!! This reminds me of when I was in HS band we did a "lights out" show at halftime for Homecoming with fireworks. However, we had flashlights taped to our ankles so we could see and we knew it was coming. I am impressed that you guys made it to the end!!

Some interesting Facts & Statistics as we get closer to BOA SA... 2018 SA Finals average score was 92.80 2018 SA Finals 11 of 14 finalists broke 90 with a low of 88.40 2018 SA "next 10" (place 15-24 in prelims) averaged 87.7 with a low of 86.45 2019 St. Louis Finals average score was 85.5 with 2 bands breaking 90 and a low of 81.45 2019 Indy Finals average was 85.5 with 3 bands breaking 90 and a low of 81.20 2018 GN Finals average score was 92.80 with a low of 89.3 Translation? The "Next 10" from SA 2018 and SA 2019 would/ could have been in "top half" of Finals in Indy and/or St. Louis in 2019 All 14 bands in 2019 SA Finals should score high enough to be in 2019 GN finals and potentially all break 90 Disclaimer: I know this is all apples & oranges with comparing across different competitions, years and judges. However, since we are in the middle of the MLB World Series and baseball guys are notorious for diving deep into some odd statistics, I thought I would have a little fun with this. Enjoy!!

Rain in Austin area this week forecasted on Tuesday and Wednesday. Bad timing right before BOA SA!!

The MFA website lists these future dates for GN: Nov 12-14, 2020 Nov 11-13, 2021 Nov 10-12, 2022 As principalagent points out, the GN dates inch back each year so perhaps 2023 is the tipping point for UIL -v- BOA?

So much to unpack here. I think BOA SA is Oct 30-31 next year? If so, 3A and 5A schools will have a choice to make, won't they? Or will BOA push it back a week because GN is Nov 12-14? Of course, the availability of the Alamodome is also a factor. I guess BOA could let the 3A and 5A bands do prelims on Friday and then they could do Area on Saturday? But what if a 3A or 5A band makes finals, then what? I guess the CTJ 2016 option is on the table to do Area prelims and then not do finals. In that case they could do BOA prelims on Friday, Area prelims on Saturday morning and potentially BOA finals Saturday night? This is going to affect LISD South pretty hard with Cedar Park, Rouse, Glenn and possibly Leander if they move down to 5A. WOW!!!

Do we know finals schedule yet?

Correct....Leander did State in 2013 (5A), 2015 (5A), and 2016 (6A) so the class of '16 actually did it three times!!!

On the brighter side...it could potentially open up a better window to get back to Grand Nationals. When we went in 2016 I don't think the plan was to have to deal with UIL that year but we unexpectedly got bumped up to 6A (by 10 students) which forced us to do BOA SA, UIL, and GN in the same week. If we were to get off the 6A state cycle, then we could get back to GN in three years (2022) and not have UIL state to deal with. Disclaimer....this is just me thinking out loud....I have no inside knowledge.

Leander was 5th that year at Area or "1st out" and this was my older sons Senior Year. It was painful. They were also 15th (1st out) at BOA SA that year which added to the pain. However, the very next year was the year Leander started to take off so it all worked out.

I got a similar email. They also said GN tickets go out next week.

Any thoughts or insights into why BOA is grouping these top bands together? Isn't the pattern from previous years to space them out a little more ?

Anyone know what time the Semi Finals awards / Finals announcements starts on Saturday afternoon? Seems like it is in the 4pm hour?? Bonus Question...who is the exhibition band and what time do they perform on Saturday afternoon?

I will continue the trend of talking about our own schools show but seeing our kids dance to Brittany Spears and then then march off to the 1812 Overture in the closer is pretty awesome. Other schools I have seen live and like a lot.....Vandy, Rouse, Reagan, Cedar Park, CTJ, and Johnson HS in Buda, TX. Their race car show was a crowd please and for a new small single A school they looked great!!!

Are schools required to compete in UIL or could they "opt out" to do BOA if they wanted to? I am thinking of what CTJ did in 2016. Would we potentially see more of that from LISD South & North and NEISD if these potential UIL conflicts become a reality?

Another thing I think we will see is the "Next 10" (places 15-24 from prelims) will have scored high enough to have made finals at any other Regional or Super Regional including St. Louis or Indy and maybe even GN.

A - this would help eliminate having to use the "bad judge rule" right? Seems like this would keep from having to use the rule is there were more judges? D - I hope previous comments about UIL creating a conflict with BOA are wrong. Otherwise we will see more CTJ moves to skip state (2016) and I would not blame anyone for doing it!! E - Wait...What?? I thought you had to get a 1 to advance? Are there bands currently advancing from Region to Area with a 2 or 3? G - About time!! I was in a military style band in High School and even though we got 1's every year, there was no Area or State for us. We were "1" and done!!

Does anyone know if there is a Drum Major retreat on Friday evening at the conclusion of prelims? I know there is a DM retreat on Saturday afternoon and full retreat after finals but can't remember about prelims.

Our show is 10+ minutes long and as we all know UIL makes you stop at 8 minutes so the Directors let us all know they would be skipping the opener. Also, UIL has rules for recorded sound so we were using a different sound track today. Now that the UIL show is behind us, we can get back to our normal BOA show.

I just saw Vista in the Region 32 UIL contest today. They looked and sounded great. Much improved from BOA Austin and LISD Festival of Bands. I think they are going to make it hard on the judges not to include them in SA finals.

Has anyone received their BOA SA tickets in the mail yet that ordered them directly from MFA?