Origin

Sucks to see Keller Central fall out of the top 6 😢. Even if them being top 3 in prelims seemed a bit wild.

Yay LD Bell!!!!

Sad for Westwood and Bowie 😢. This area is impossibly difficult.

I saw the prelims sheets and actually every band got disqualified so they just gave the win to Hebron cuz they didn’t know what else to do.

Wow, no Haltom.

How do you see who’s judging this competition?

Congrats Wakeland on an amazing season!!! (Even if it didn’t end as originally planned). I guess I was spot on when I said Wakeland had the advantage in visual and percussion and that Keller would put up a good fight for music.

Brownsburg is tackling a full-size Cartwright production. Going after all the heavy hitters, their music issues are on full display. If they can clean that up, I think they’ll be a solid finalist here in a few weeks.

Mason and Blue Springs are much improved from last year (not that they weren’t very good last year). I think I preferred Blue Springs just now. They move like a DCI group, it’s so cool to see. I wish they were going to Nats!

Didn’t that exact same thing happen last year but with the music caption? 😂

Ughhhhhhh Carmel is so good. All the tempo changes and quiet, delicate moments…so so so challenging. Not as conceptually interesting as last year, but still fantastic.

Realllllly enjoying the simplicity of Avon this year. Guard is absolutely fantastic. Lots of Crown vibes, of course.

Geez, how many trucks does Brownsburg need for just their props alone

Considering this is judged using the state sheets, I would give the advantage to Wakeland in the visual and percussion captions, and I could see Keller (or even Waxahachie) putting up a strong fight for the other music captions. Content and design could really go any way.

Does anyone have an updated schedule?

Southlake Carroll 1st in individual music in prelims…hmm. That judge was all over the place in prelims.

Yay! Wakeland!!!

What is going on with this high cam 😅

Wow, Southlake Carroll ditched the tarps. At least for this performance.

I think Prosper could do reallllly well here. They have the visual program that could give them the edge over the W schools.

Saw that Wakeland also has Region this same day. I assume they aren’t opting out of finals, but three performances in one day is a lot.

Finals locks in my mind: Hebron, Vandy, CTJ, Reagan, Flo Mo, Marcus, Cedar Ridge, Coppell, Cedar Park, and TWHS. Vista Ridge and Round Rock also look especially strong but then you have about 1 million other bands that could easily be in finals too (Keller, Rouse, Westlake, Cy-Fair, Pearland, Seven Lakes, LD Bell, James Bowie, etc.) The last time Leander missed finals at a competition was in 2013, and for Keller, 2014. With the staff changes and crazy unfortunate sickness going around at Leander, finals just might not be in the cards for them this year. Keller has me more conflicted. They sound like a solid finalist, but idk if the design is quite there yet. Imo, their 2021 show was actually a bit weaker and less interesting, and they still made finals pretty comfortably with a majority of judges having them top 7 in prelims. Luckily, both bands know how to peak at the right time. What’s exciting about this competition is that there will always be surprises with who makes finals/who doesn’t because sooooo much will change in the next few weeks.

There are problems with both systems, but at then end of the day, people are always going to be more concerned that the judges get the winner right versus the bands in the middle. No one’s gonna really care in a year if they’re 6th vs 7th, but they will care if they go from 1st to 3rd in national finals. I guess they could randomize in groups of 4 if they really wanted to get rid of the split, but that just makes everything more complicated.

Could this be the start of an undefeated season for Hebron?

Hebron almost with a 90!! Wow!! Waxahachie from 14th last year to 8th this year! Great Improvement.