utee94

SIAP, I didn't see a thread for this one but I might have missed it. I've been mostly offline and not sure when this was finally announced, a couple of weeks ago I think. This one is put on by Cedar Ridge High and is one of their annual fundraisers. https://texasmarchingclassic.org/ It often seems like just a BOA-Austin 2.0, but last year it was VERY lightly attended, only 15 or 16 bands in prelims and so the majority made finals. Cedar Park typically attends but it's not on the official band calendar yet and I've heard nothing from the directors/boosters about it.

Cedar Park reveal will be May 6th.

Looks like Dripping dropped the West Texas regional and picked this one up instead. Which would seem to support the theory that some of the Austin-area bands would like to get away from the extremely high level of competition at the Austin/RR regional and try to move up the placement stack at other regionals.

True but I suspect most of the major Austin/LISD/RRISD schools will still go to the Austin (Round Rock?) regional rather than go to San Marcos. So my friends at, say... Austin Anderson, who struggle to make finals at BOA-Austin when they're competing against a stacked slate like Vandy, VR, CP, Leander, Rouse, CR, Round Rock, etc. might try to move away from the Austin regional and see if they've got a better shot in San Marcos. Of course if every heavy hitter from SA decides to do the same thing, they might not fare any better, but it might be worth a shot.

Yeah I'm really curious as to who will end up going to San Marcos. I could see some of the San Antonio schools that have been going to Houston regionals, switching to SM instead. And perhaps some of the slightly lower-tier Austin ISD marching bands looking to get away from Leander and Round Rock ISD and secure a higher finish. But I'd be surprised if any of the major central Texas bands did both on back to back weekends, and I'd also be surprised to see any of them skip Austin and go to San Marcos instead. Just as an example, Kelly Reeves is 6 miles and 10 minutes from Cedar Park High School, while Bobcat Stadium is 50 miles and over an hour away.

The timing between these two seems so weird. I'd expect a lot of overlap if they were spaced out a bit more, but as it is I don't see many of the Austin bands repeating a week later, not do I see them skipping Austin to go to San Marcos instead. Maybe San Marcos will draw some of the SA bands that are currently planning on Houston-area regionals?

Not 6A Area I, but Cedar Park's official show reveal will be 5/6/2024 which is about the same timing as previous years. I'm sure the directors have let a handful of folks know, but I'm not nearly important enough in the booster club to get that kind of insider info.

*thorough

Yeah I hang out over there a little bit, too. It's really interesting seeing the videos of old performances from the 80s and how different everything was. That's the same era when I was in marching band at Anderson High, from 1986-1989. We didn't have any pit, all percussion including xylophones marched with the battery, and of course no props either. Everything was less sophisticated than it is now, but in a lot of ways that made it more accessible as well.

Wow that's cool! Things are getting pretty stacked...

The UIL site had a message saying it had suspended all other web pages and web traffic on its entire site between 9 AM and noon, and the only available page would be the new UIL Districts page. I guess high school football is kind of a big deal here in Texas... Anyway, glad to see that at least we won't have to travel from Cedar Park all the way to College Station for the next 2 years. Furthest roadtrips are Lake Belton and Killeen. In 2022, CP not only had to travel to College Station twice in the same season, but in back-to- back weeks in the middle of October.

I was just googling to find out some about the history of marching band competitions in Texas, and it led me here. I should have known just to start with this forum. Great info and summary, thanks @AlsoIntoSpace !

So what's a "normal" or "average" number of Texas bands that attend GN on a yearly basis? I know there were quite a few last year, which seemed "high" to me, but I also don't have much experience or historical knowledge here.

That tubabone solo was so great! I really loved hearing it, every time CP performed with Leander! Really enjoyed your whole show of course. And I'm already unreasonably excited about next year, too, it's going to be a lot of fun to see what the LISD bands come up with, along with everyone else around the state and country. The kids are begging the directors to pull-in the Show Reveal, it didn't happen until May 8th last year and I don't think anyone can stand to wait that long this time.

I haven't noticed injuries as too much of a problem so far, but my goodness, the sickness! I'm only two years in, so can't speak from TOO much experience, but in both years so far, pretty much the entire CP band has caught the flu, COVID, or just the general creeping crud, during those first couple weeks of November. This past year, by the time we got to State Finals, probably half the band was marching with the flu. My daughter missed the rest of school all week long. And I heard (probably on this forum) that the same thing happened to Leander. Marching band just requires so much energy, even the healthiest kids are just totally worn out by that time. I'm a little worried that packing UIL State, BOA-SA, and BOA-GN into a 2-week span, is going to make it even worse this year. I obviously hope not!

OK so we had our big booster club meeting tonight, and it sounds like BOA centrally controls the booking of hotels for each band, with allowance for stated preferences. I thought @LeanderMomma would be happy to hear that Leander and CP are using the same booking company and will be effectively traveling as one big happy family. We know several families in the Leander band so that should be a lot of fun. Stated hotel preference from our booking agent is the Hyatt Regency, and they want parents to book in the same block as their band so that bit will be taken care of for us, all we have to book are the flights. But one thing that is confusing to me-- according to the itinerary, we're not traveling from Austin to Indianapolis until Thursday 11/14 and wouldn't be available to perform until Friday 11/15. But last year I thought prelims were on Thursday. So I'm not sure how that's supposed to work...

Parking is pretty problematic there, but yeah it would make sense if it were heat-related.

Yes, it's a fair debate. I've been pretty shocked at some of the early call times for travel. But other than asking parents to pay even more than the ~$1,000 per student per year we're already paying (and that's in a NON-grand nationals year), I'm not sure what the solution is. The district isn't going to pony up for the overnight expenditures, so it's either have the crazy call times, or don't go at all.

Leander ISD bands have removed some of the cost of trips to SA by shuttling back and forth every day rather than staying overnight for ANY of it. So have many other Centex bands. Obviously this is only possible due to proximity, and bands coming from further away don't have that luxury.* (I use luxury with an asterisk because it also ends up with some insane morning call times to load the buses and head to SA, this past year CP kids were called to the bandhall for the trip to BOA-SA at something like 3:00 AM on Friday morning I think, because we had one of the earliest AM performance slots). But still, it saved some money...

Ugh, cold in November. Something this Austin born-and-bred boy never really thinks about. Thanks for the reminder...

Hey all, as a band parent n00b making his first ever trip to grand nationals, I was hoping to lean on the collective wisdom of the TXBands crew, to figure out if there are any preferred hotels or a preferred area to stay and make sure we catch everything important? We'll mostly just be doing the contest, probably not a lot of time for sight-seeing, so is it just a matter of being as close as possible to Lucas Oil Stadium? Thanks in advance for any help! (not sure if this is the best forum, mods please feel free to move if this should go somewhere else)

I'm not sure it's any "less intrusive" but I do think people are just gutting it out and pushing through. Right now I'm looking at sending my two kids to Grand Nationals, plus my wife and I do pit-pack and chaperoning duties so the entire family will be going. It'll be something like $6,000 minimum just for my own family, which is pretty daunting. I'd honestly prefer to see the band skip BOA-SA to preserve more resources for the trip to Indianapolis, not just financially but in days the kids are out of school and in days I'm forced to take off from work. It'll be one day for BOA-SA, 2 days for UIL State, and then at least 3 days for Indianapolis including flights/travel. Maybe there's some way to ask for preferential treatment in SA and do prelims on Saturday instead of Friday? But so far, my kids' band always ends up going on Friday.

Yup I'm sure they're just finalizing the details on venue availability. There aren't usually football games on Saturdays but since that stadium hosts home games for several RRISD schools, it occasionally happens and would need to be accounted for.

I'll be there schlepping props and equipment on and off the field. The good news-- no sandbags necessary in indoor stadiums...