UIL 5A Area B 2025

[OGFISD99]

I know it's early for predictions for Area but here are mine... 

1. Wakeland/ Lone Star 

2. Lone Star/ Wakeland 

3. Argyle 

4. Lebanon Trail /Mckinney North 

5. Reedy/ Heritage/  Mckinney North 

6. Heritage/ Reedy/ Mckinney North 

7. Emerson/ Heritage 

8. Centennial 

9. Memorial 

10. Frisco 

[Tubalord11]

8 hours ago, OGFISD99 said:

I know it's early for predictions for Area but here are mine... 

1. Wakeland/ Lone Star 

2. Lone Star/ Wakeland 

3. Argyle 

4. Lebanon Trail /Mckinney North 

5. Reedy/ Heritage/  Mckinney North 

6. Heritage/ Reedy/ Mckinney North 

7. Emerson/ Heritage 

8. Centennial 

9. Memorial 

10. Frisco 

No Independence or Walnut Grove? 

[opiniondropper25]

These will change but these are my predictions for now

1. Wakeland/ Lone Star 

2. Lone Star/ Wakeland 

3. Lebanon Trail 

4. Reedy/Argyle/MN

5. Argyle/Reedy/MN

6.  MN/Argyle

7.   Independence 

8.  Walnut Grove

9.  Heritage

10. Emerson

My 1-7 are locks I don't see anyone else going in there. I think this weekends BOA Prosper will determine a good amount with this area, especially with the Lone Star/Wakeland battle. Reedy tied with LT for 1st place in prelims at Mckinney over the weekend, and only 2 points off from argyle in finals as well, I noticed some funky things going on in their final run so maybe that could've played a factor for them. Independence is doing great with Mr. King placing well at WMI and MMI. Heritage sounded so strong and clean. 

[bandkid67]

 

41 minutes ago, opiniondropper25 said:

These will change but these are my predictions for now

1. Wakeland/ Lone Star 

2. Lone Star/ Wakeland 

3. Lebanon Trail 

4. Reedy/Argyle/MN

5. Argyle/Reedy/MN

6.  MN/Argyle

7.   Independence 

8.  Walnut Grove

9.  Heritage

10. Emerson

My 1-7 are locks I don't see anyone else going in there. I think this weekends BOA Prosper will determine a good amount with this area, especially with the Lone Star/Wakeland battle. Reedy tied with LT for 1st place in prelims at Mckinney over the weekend, and only 2 points off from argyle in finals as well, I noticed some funky things going on in their final run so maybe that could've played a factor for them. Independence is doing great with Mr. King placing well at WMI and MMI. Heritage sounded so strong and clean. 

i definitely think independence, emerson, and reedy had better runs in the past, so hopefully they will improve more

[Toasty]

Let me know your through on my area predictions 

 

1. Wakeland

2. lone star

3. Lebanon trail 

4.argyle

5.McN

6.reedy

7.heritage/the colony/emerson?

8. The Colony/heritage/emerson?

9. Emerson

10. Walnut grove 

 

I could see reedy above north, that 7-9 bubble would be interesting to see, the colony doesn’t really attend the same comps as anyone in this area so it’s super hard to judge them, but I can assume they’ll bounce back after just one bad year. I see wakeland easily take first, and after what we’ve seen, Lt is a lock for 3rd, 4th can be a toss up but just to be safe I have argyle. Let me know your thoughts on it,

 

first out: independence 

[bandkid67]

1 hour ago, Toasty said:

Let me know your through on my area predictions 

 

1. Wakeland

2. lone star

3. Lebanon trail 

4.argyle

5.McN

6.reedy

7.heritage/the colony/emerson?

8. The Colony/heritage/emerson?

9. Emerson

10. Walnut grove 

 

I could see reedy above north, that 7-9 bubble would be interesting to see, the colony doesn’t really attend the same comps as anyone in this area so it’s super hard to judge them, but I can assume they’ll bounce back after just one bad year. I see wakeland easily take first, and after what we’ve seen, Lt is a lock for 3rd, 4th can be a toss up but just to be safe I have argyle. Let me know your thoughts on it,

 

first out: independence 

i doubt independence will get out first as they also have a new part they will be adding soon.

[TrenBS]

1. Wakeland
2. Lone Star
3. Lebanon Trail
4. McKinney North/Argyle
5. Argyle/McKinney North
6. Reedy
7. Independence
8. Walnut Grove
9. Emerson
10. Heritage

I think 1-3, and 6-8 are fairly locked, the last state slot is going to entirely depend on who wins the captions

McKinney North is always a slow burn, peaking at area and always underperforming early on due to dirt, although they could easily miss to Argyle.

[Toasty]

I’m kinda confused with what changed scoring wise, isn’t there Still 5 judges like always? I heard about captions but what are the captions? Wind, Ge, Visual, percussion, auxiliary? Or what? And what do the judges focus more on now

[clarinut]

29 minutes ago, bandkid67 said:

i doubt independence will get out first as they also have a new part they will be adding soon.

i agree with this. personally, independence will be winning 1st-10th place.

[TrenBS]

12 minutes ago, Toasty said:

I’m kinda confused with what changed scoring wise, isn’t there Still 5 judges like always? I heard about captions but what are the captions? Wind, Ge, Visual, percussion, auxiliary? Or what? And what do the judges focus more on now

5 judges: Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion are the new music captions. CONTENT, or what people would correlate with "General Effect", is now 1/3 of the score for every single section.

It is a very very good change, since now instead of UIL being 80% achievement, or being just pure cleanliness of the entire ensemble, and 20% of whats actually happening on the field for the entire winds and percussion in regards to difficulty and effectiveness, that ratio is now 34% on the content and difficulty, 34% of the ensemble quality/cleanliness of whatever section the judge is assigned to (WW, Br, Perc), and 34% of individual cleanliness, looking at individual members and how well they execute and whatnot. That means *hypothetically* the sub captions can actually have discernible ranks that have a line of reasoning, rather than being equaled out for "band X is just better than band Y", or just make no sense like if Hebron lost a music sub caption to a lower band (Boyd did in 2022...)

The visual judge sheets just got a revamp to make more sense with the modern times, 34% content/"General Effect", 34% the ensemble movements, and 34% individual member execution of form, with UIL's overall emphasis on consistency rather than true General Effect which I would say is about show design, progression, staging, and communicating emotion to the audience; in which UIL's CONTENT score is a sort of a hybrid of true General Effect and their emphasis more on difficulty leading content rather than how its designed.

The bottom line is that area really shouldn't be nearly as random as it has been, bands are emphasized on utilizing the entire band to its fullest as opposed to relying on a good percussion section to drive the old "music" judges scores upwards with a lack luster brass section. It creates a lot more accountability for the bands with glaring weaknesses, and I could certainly see a lot of shake ups occurring and many bands getting left behind by the bands that try to take advantage of these new and really improved sheets.

[Toasty]

36 minutes ago, TrenBS said:

5 judges: Woodwinds, Brass, and Percussion are the new music captions. CONTENT, or what people would correlate with "General Effect", is now 1/3 of the score for every single section.

It is a very very good change, since now instead of UIL being 80% achievement, or being just pure cleanliness of the entire ensemble, and 20% of whats actually happening on the field for the entire winds and percussion in regards to difficulty and effectiveness, that ratio is now 34% on the content and difficulty, 34% of the ensemble quality/cleanliness of whatever section the judge is assigned to (WW, Br, Perc), and 34% of individual cleanliness, looking at individual members and how well they execute and whatnot. That means *hypothetically* the sub captions can actually have discernible ranks that have a line of reasoning, rather than being equaled out for "band X is just better than band Y", or just make no sense like if Hebron lost a music sub caption to a lower band (Boyd did in 2022...)

The visual judge sheets just got a revamp to make more sense with the modern times, 34% content/"General Effect", 34% the ensemble movements, and 34% individual member execution of form, with UIL's overall emphasis on consistency rather than true General Effect which I would say is about show design, progression, staging, and communicating emotion to the audience; in which UIL's CONTENT score is a sort of a hybrid of true General Effect and their emphasis more on difficulty leading content rather than how its designed.

The bottom line is that area really shouldn't be nearly as random as it has been, bands are emphasized on utilizing the entire band to its fullest as opposed to relying on a good percussion section to drive the old "music" judges scores upwards with a lack luster brass section. It creates a lot more accountability for the bands with glaring weaknesses, and I could certainly see a lot of shake ups occurring and many bands getting left behind by the bands that try to take advantage of these new and really improved sheets.

ok, so does this new thing put more of an emphasis on difficulty of shows? And what are the 5 captions then? Your explanation is really good I just want to make sure I understand it 

[TrenBS]

1 minute ago, Toasty said:

ok, so does this new thing put more of an emphasis on difficulty of shows? And what are the 5 captions then? Your explanation is really good I just want to make sure I understand it 

Difficulty is more emphasized yes, I would say statistically its about 14% more emphasized, but achievement is a lot more nuanced so the impact is going to be much more apparent.

Music: Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion

Visual 1 and Visual 2 (judge captions remained, sheets changed significantly)

[Toasty]

4 minutes ago, TrenBS said:

Difficulty is more emphasized yes, I would say statistically its about 14% more emphasized, but achievement is a lot more nuanced so the impact is going to be much more apparent.

Music: Woodwinds, Brass, Percussion

Visual 1 and Visual 2 (judge captions remained, sheets changed significantly)

Ok thank you, so In our predictions we should take difficulty into account rather than just being good as well, do you have an image of what the new score sheet is like?

[TrenBS]

1 minute ago, Toasty said:

Ok thank you, so In our predictions we should take difficulty into account rather than just being good as well, do you have an image of what the new score sheet is like?

The sheet is below, but I wouldnt think about it as sheer difficulty, UIL is still heavily weighted towards cleanliness, but if a band has harder music content all around, their cleanliness will just be weighted a little less in favor of their content, so I would say if Hebron 2024 were to go directly against Hebron 2021 in the new sheets, Hebron 2024 would win in all the music captions besides maybe percussion.
https://www.uiltexas.org/files/music/4A:5A:6A_Area_Sheets.pdf
 

[cheesecurd21]

Two things I think people aren’t considering enough here, how much improvement can some of these bands get and how much of their show have they put out. I know majority of bands have not performed their entire show (I believe Emerson and WG have..?) Any I feel like some of these bands will change a LOT since there is still a month left to go. Personally I think Reedy, Emerson, and WG have the most potential growth, and while Indy and Heritage are doing quite well I haven’t really ever seen them grow this fast before so I can’t make an accurate prediction on how their “late season” will be. I think as long as lebanon trail doesn’t peak they’ll almost certainly be in the 2 or 3 seat. 

[OGFISD99]

14 hours ago, Tubalord11 said:

No Independence or Walnut Grove? 

I've been  having trouble posting on here especially  this weekend having double  or triple post independence in 7th with Heritage/  emerson and WG 9th... sorry I'm not tge most  tech savvy person... pen and paper are my forte... lol...

[Tubalord11]

2 minutes ago, OGFISD99 said:

I've been  having trouble posting on here especially  this weekend having double  or triple post independence in 7th with Heritage/  emerson and WG 9th... sorry I'm not tge most  tech savvy person... pen and paper are my forte... lol...

You good haha! I haven’t seen WG, Will at prosper but them winning POC is a good sign, and obv Independence is having a very strong start 

[TrenBS]

14 hours ago, cheesecurd21 said:

Two things I think people aren’t considering enough here, how much improvement can some of these bands get and how much of their show have they put out. I know majority of bands have not performed their entire show (I believe Emerson and WG have..?) Any I feel like some of these bands will change a LOT since there is still a month left to go. Personally I think Reedy, Emerson, and WG have the most potential growth, and while Indy and Heritage are doing quite well I haven’t really ever seen them grow this fast before so I can’t make an accurate prediction on how their “late season” will be. I think as long as lebanon trail doesn’t peak they’ll almost certainly be in the 2 or 3 seat. 

Potential growth is a tricky thing for me to try and evaluate. You would really need to have intimate knowledge about the band and the member talent across the board, and judging it otherwise is difficult, but not impossible.

 

Its hard to consider when predicting competitions unless you know the band well, so thats why it usually never gets considered, unless were talking about bands that are just blatantly over programmed in the early season but clean fast enough to be great by the end (McKinney North is a deliberate example of this type of philosophy).

[glyde]

On 10/5/2025 at 4:05 PM, Dave609 said:

Im hoping Melissa does better than this past weekend. Should be able to watch prelims for the event through the livestream!

Do you think you could screen record wakeland and melissa? If it would be possible🙏

[BassoonSOLO5456]

Any thoughts on how the bands in this area will rank for BOA Prosper? Will definitely get a better idea on the band's placement for the area, although there is still a month left.  Any opinions on any of the bands this year? I think Wakeland has the slight edge over Lone Star as they beat them at BOA Mid Cities, Lebanon Trail, Argyle, and Reedy, fighting for spots 3-4

[Dave609]

Im really hoping i can make it to this competition this year because I really want to see Lone Star's show now

[SharksAreCool]

10 hours ago, BassoonSOLO5456 said:

Any thoughts on how the bands in this area will rank for BOA Prosper? Will definitely get a better idea on the band's placement for the area, although there is still a month left.  Any opinions on any of the bands this year? I think Wakeland has the slight edge over Lone Star as they beat them at BOA Mid Cities, Lebanon Trail, Argyle, and Reedy, fighting for spots 3-4

If I had to rank whos going to prosper here would be my guess

 

1. Wakeland

2. LoneStar

3. Lebanon Trail

4. McKinney North

5. Reedy

6. Walnut Groove

7. Liberty

However I wouldn't rely to much on Prosper's results knowing that bands clean in different ways and BOA uses general effect as most of the scoring.

Edited October 10, 2025 by SharksAreCool

[Tubalord11]

7 hours ago, SharksAreCool said:

If I had to rank whos going to prosper here would be my guess

 

1. Wakeland

2. LoneStar

3. Lebanon Trail

4. McKinney North

5. Reedy

6. Walnut Groove

 

However I wouldn't rely to much on Prosper's results knowing that bands clean in different ways and BOA uses general effect as most of the scoring.

This. I think Argyle will still be top 5 or 6, they are really strong this year, though they need to have a strong prelims run but seeing them at finals at McKinney, yeah they’re still really good

[SharksAreCool]

1 hour ago, Tubalord11 said:

This. I think Argyle will still be top 5 or 6, they are really strong this year, though they need to have a strong prelims run but seeing them at finals at McKinney, yeah they’re still really good

Those where only the bands going to prosper

[Tubalord11]

2 hours ago, SharksAreCool said:

Those where only the bands going to prosper

Ooooo gotcha yeah