Preparing for State Marching Band Contest is a Year-Round Job
By Richard Floyd, Music Director | Thursday, November 18, 2010 8:52 AM
It’s the first weekend in November and busloads of band students from across Texas converge on San Antonio for the UIL State Marching Band Contest. By the time the lights go out on Tuesday evening, approximately 18,000 spectators and 10,000 band students will have occupied the Alamodome and celebrated one of the premier marching band events in the nation.
As one might assume, this event doesn’t magically unfold in a 48-hour period of time. It involves months of careful planning and behind the scenes preparation. In fact, plans are already underway for the 2011 A-AA-AAAA event. Step by step, each piece of the puzzle will be laid in place to ensure that every detail of this monumental event is commensurate with the high quality of music performances that are the hallmark of this competition.
At this point in time, the Alamodome is already reserved for this event through 2018. Thus the UIL has a long-term commitment with this venue for the State Marching Band Contest. Shortly, room reservations for judges, contest officials and support personnel will be secured for 2011.
Serious thought is already being given to the composition of the judge panels for next year. This decision-making process includes a careful review of previous years’ judges and the recommendations of participant bands from past contests. Interestingly, surveys seeking directors’ preferences for judges always yield similar results. A percentage of directors want all in-state judges while others want all out-of-state judges. A similar number want high school judges only as opposed to a contingent that want college judges only. Thus, any given state panel will traditionally contain a mixture of in-state and out-of-state judges with representation of both high school and collegiate directors.
Shortly after the first of the year, Area Contest Chairs begin the process of hiring judges for the 12 Area Contests and confirming reservations for sites for these events. Then in August during the annual Region Executive Secretaries meeting in Austin, a specific time is set aside to review all aspects of the area and state contests. The goal is to ensure that all area and state contests are run consistently and equitably. During that meeting an attempt is made to estimate the number of bands that will compete at each area contest, thus giving the state office some idea of the number of bands to anticipate at the state contest.
In September, packets of materials for bands advancing from region to area and area to state are prepared and sent to each Region Executive Secretary and Area Contest Chair. During this same time the Area Chairs prepare contest packets, procedural guidelines and maps for the actual area contests. Also, in September George Strickland and I travel to San Antonio to attend a planning meeting with the Alamodome events coordinator. Everything from facilities to staff and catering are discussed in detail.
The Thursday prior to the Area Contests the state office schedules a conference call with all Contest Chairs. This conference call affords everyone the opportunity to review all details and report the exact number of bands that will advance to state. Once the phone meeting is complete, the state office can hold a random draw to determine the performance order for the state prelims. This order is then sent electronically to the Area Contest Chairs and times are assigned to advancing bands at the conclusion of the Area Contest finals.
Complete contest results are sent electronically to the UIL state office no later than 10 a.m. on Sunday. UIL music staff member Patty Esfandiari is on duty Sunday to begin processing this vital data. During the next 24 hours the schedule is finalized, posted on the UIL website and competing directors electronically submit information for program content, bus requests and public address announcements. By Tuesday afternoon the program is being formatted for printing and the task of putting together contest judge packets is underway. School packets with credentials, bus parking permits and final instructions are sent Second Day UPS to all competing schools. On Thursday and Friday all contest materials, supplies, recorders, scoring systems, computers, trophies and programs are being organized and packaged for transport to San Antonio.
On Sunday the move to San Antonio takes place. The Alamodome is dark except for work lights and the presence of a skeleton security crew. In approximately four hours time, all rooms are set up, judging stations are furnished, programs are positioned at the spectator entry gates, signage is in place and a final walk-through of all facilities is complete. All logistics for the contest are complete.
Then on to the hotel for check-in and an evening dinner meeting with judges, scorers, PA announcer and other contest office personnel. A large segment of this session is devoted to a review of the scoring system and the expectations for the judges. This meeting is not concluded until everyone is comfortable with his or her responsibilities and duties for the next two days.
The contest day starts before dawn. The staff members meeting buses and monitoring the warm-up areas are in place. There is radio communication with all critical points in the contest infrastructure from bus parking to percussion warm-up and from entry gate to contest headquarters in the press box. The Alamodome Events Coordinator is in constant communication with the contest headquarters on a different frequency. The goal is for the schedule to unfold on time and seamlessly.
At the conclusion of the prelim competitions, the directors are assembled to hear the results and verify the scoring. After this meeting the results are immediately forwarded to the PA Announcer for public release during the Drum Major Retreat. While this ceremony is taking place the directors of the bands advancing to finals participate in a “blind draw” for finals performance order. The schedule for the evening has been predetermined so all that is necessary is the assigning of competitors to performance times and then a quick review of the sequence for the evening. (It is important to note that the results of the preliminary competition score are not shared with the adjudication panel that will judge finals. Thus, by design, the finals judges view the evening competition from a fresh perspective with no bias or preconceived notion based on preliminary contest results.)
Results are immediately posted on the UIL website. Then, a short night’s sleep, and on Tuesday the process repeats itself. By 11 p.m. another State Marching Band Contest is history. To put the size of the event in perspective, consider that in 2010 the UIL hosted 59 marching bands, 79 performances, three collegiate bands and approximately 18,000 spectators and parked 297 buses. Including an estimated 12,000 student participants, directors and school officials, the event accommodated more than 30,000 attendees.
The success of this event is a direct result of the dedicated UIL staff, San Antonio band directors and music educators who assist in a broad array of essential duties, parents from the Northeast ISD and other tireless workers. They all give of their time and talents to make this an experience of a lifetime for the thousands of talented high school music students who step onto the Alamodome gridiron each November.