2013 Marching Band Thread

[Pembo]

$6 adults, $3 students - free parking always for football If you are a band chaperone, you get in free.


Last night was an away game. I think the final score was 7-48. My ds's dream of a perfect 0-10 season is now 0-6.

The band did fine. Our next competition is the 12th. Thankful for a weekend off.

 

[marcyinPA]

so random question. If you chaperone for a game, you get in free naturally, but does the rest of your family?

And how much does it cost for your football games?

Ours seems a bit high. Just curious.

It's $5 for parking
$7 for 6th grade & up
$2 for younger. No other student rates.

My nephews school has season passes you can buy & discounts for students & no parking fee.

Of course we want the parking fee cause all that $ goes to the band.

Our school district stadium charges $6 for adults, not sure for students, and senior citizens are free. We always buy the all sports family pass- $70 covers all family members at all home games that charge admission, for both of the high schools in the district. It's a good deal. Parking is free- and a nightmare because the stadium is in the city.

 

[camreesmom]

Our team won last night. Thank God after they lost last week 48-0 they hadn't been shut out in 8 years and had won 27 straight regular season games so that loss hurt. It was also Homecoming last night which meant Gallon Challenge afterwards. We didn't get home until almost 1 am. Whoever came up with Gallon Challenge must have been nuts.....lol.

Our stadium doesn't charge for parking but the Athletic Booster Club sells a limited number of reserved parking places for $100 per season. This is the first year we have bought a space but with DD14 in Band & DD17 in Cheer, we knew we wanted to be able to park close. Reserved seating season tickets are $5 per game (doesn't matter what age). You can get general admission presale tickets for $5 for adults & $3 for students and all tickets sold at the gate are $7. Season tickets sell out really fast in our town & many families keep their seats for years & years & just pass them down to younger family members. We've had our same seats for 18 years. I can't imagine giving them up either.

Chaperones & those working concessions get in free but family members do not.

 

[Pembo]

Our team won last night. Thank God after they lost last week 48-0 they hadn't been shut out in 8 years and had won 27 straight regular season games so that loss hurt. It was also Homecoming last night which meant Gallon Challenge afterwards. We didn't get home until almost 1 am. Whoever came up with Gallon Challenge must have been nuts.....lol.

Our stadium doesn't charge for parking but the Athletic Booster Club sells a limited number of reserved parking places for $100 per season. This is the first year we have bought a space but with DD14 in Band & DD17 in Cheer, we knew we wanted to be able to park close. Reserved seating season tickets are $5 per game (doesn't matter what age). You can get general admission presale tickets for $5 for adults & $3 for students and all tickets sold at the gate are $7. Season tickets sell out really fast in our town & many families keep their seats for years & years & just pass them down to younger family members. We've had our same seats for 18 years. I can't imagine giving them up either.

Chaperones & those working concessions get in free but family members do not.

What is the Gallon Challenge?

And people actually buy reserved seat for high school? That doesn't happen here! Our team is so bad, we're lucky if there will be anybody showing up even if it was free. LOL

 

[Priorityonecb]

Tonight our band won first place in all categories in our division!! We also won Grand Champions!

 

[Octoberbeauty]

Tonight our band won first place in all categories in our division!! We also won Grand Champions!

Congratulations! I'm still waiting for mine to get home to find out how they placed.

 

[juligrl]

Latecomer to the thread, but thought I'd follow along. Huge band fan! Just took my kids to our local high school band competition tonight. Not their first by any means, but they were so excited to go! We have a really great band and an amazing guard program too! Both of my kids can't wait 'til they're old enough to join.

My oldest is 10 and just started playing the flute. She loves it but she really wants to do colorguard in marching band. My youngest is 7 and wants to play every instrument there is! The scary thing is, she's made decent sound out of everything she's tried (flute, piccolo, and trumpet) on her first time, so who knows, she just might. She's only in second grade so she has three years to decide on one instrument.

 

[camreesmom]

What is the Gallon Challenge? And people actually buy reserved seat for high school? That doesn't happen here! Our team is so bad, we're lucky if there will be anybody showing up even if it was free. LOL

Gallon Challenge is crazy. There are two divisions: girls & guys. They compete in teams of two. Each person pays $5 so $10 per team. Each person has to drink a half gallon of whole milk & then run 100 yds without throwing up. The first team in each division to finish wins the money paid as entry fees in that division. The girls winning team got $290 and the guys got $260. Afterwards, the crew (10 seniors) had to pick up all of the trash & then the fire department came to wash down the parking lot. It's become a Homecoming tradition at our high school. Like the fire chief said there are a lot worse things that our kids could be doing on a Friday night

 

[camreesmom]

What is the Gallon Challenge? And people actually buy reserved seat for high school? That doesn't happen here! Our team is so bad, we're lucky if there will be anybody showing up even if it was free. LOL

And yes, they buy reserved seating for high school games here. This is a small town though and seriously, there is little else to do around here on a Friday night. Like I said, we've had our same seats for 18 years now and our team had a 40 year losing streak! My husband's family actually bought the very first reserved seats in our stadium. Our team has made it deep in the playoffs the last 8 years & so now there are people complaining about people keeping their same seats for so many years. Our stadium only seats 8000 & we even use some of the visitors side for home fans. They moved the band & drill team onto the track this year to open up those seats & we have bleachers in both ends now. We had a playoff game here a couple of years ago & there were no reserved seats for that game so you should have seen the line of people outside the stadium at midnight the night before. Yes, we have no life

 

[Pembo]

The gallon challenge sounds nasty. And I'm amazed at the reserved seating. That must be a really small town! LOL

 

[camreesmom]

The gallon challenge sounds nasty. And I'm amazed at the reserved seating. That must be a really small town! LOL

Gallon challenge is nasty. The kids have fun with it though. You'd be surprised at how many parents show up to watch, too. This is a small town......only one high school for the entire county.

 

[Pembo]

Gallon challenge is nasty. The kids have fun with it though. You'd be surprised at how many parents show up to watch, too. This is a small town......only one high school for the entire county.

How many kids in the high school? According to Wikipedia, we have 20 public and 4 private high schools in our county for 300,000+ people.

 

[Gina]

I don't think people lining up for seats is a small town thing so much as a Texas thing in general. We take our HS football very, very seriously, LOL. My friend and I have our primo reserved seats, and it's very hard to find two seats anywhere near us when my folks want to come to a game. Our town has 100K+ people -- there's plenty else to do! But under those Friday night lights is where they want to be.

Our competition went well Saturday -- the band looked and sounded great -- but they didn't make finals (to no one's surprise ). They don't have the WOW factor to accomodate the spectacle that is BOA. According to my son, the band directors told them that they are officially transitioning from a UIL band to a BOA band. Frankly, I'm glad my son is graduating next year. I don't want to see what the band fees are going to be next year!!

We have another contest this Saturday, but this is one we usually do very well at. I hope this year is no different -- the kids could use the confidence boost.

Tonight our band won first place in all categories in our division!! We also won Grand Champions!

Congrats!!!!

 

[Katy Belle]

The football team won Friday night! We sold out of lots of things at the concession stand! DS13 had a GREAT time playing with the High School Band on Friday night and DS16 enjoyed the 8th grade tuba players in his section. Successful Friday night!

Saturday's contest was fun. Only 14 Bands competing. We did make Finals, top 12 bands make Finals at all of our contests. We ended up with 11th place. I can't say what went wrong, but it just didn't feel as spectacular is it does sometimes. I thought we looked better at Finals than at Preliminaries. There were 8 schools in our 3A category. Only 2 in each of 1A, 2A and 4A. We didn't win anything in our class. Union won, again, but Jenks was VERY close behind. Broken Arrow performed in an Exhibition Performance, since it was at their school. They looked marvelous, as usual!

It was a fun day and I'm STILL exhausted. Went and checked uniforms, and slept the rest of the afternoon!

This Friday is an away game, and no contest on Saturday. An all day rehearsal instead, 9-4.

 

[marcyinPA]

I am curious if my DS's band is the only band that doesn't do field show competitions? I love hearing about them, but the concept is so foreign to me. I was in band in HS and my band didn't do them either.

Aside from football games, our band has been continuing the Sunday afternoon marathon practices for the Rose Parade. I have to say that it is getting really annoying!! I understand why they need to put so much time into it, but seriously, my kid is burning out. Sigh.

We have one more parade to go. Football games end 11/2. Then it is practice practice practice until the trip.

Between band, homework, theatre and church commitments, I hope my guy can manage it all!

 

[francis6306]

May I join this group? My husband is a Marching band director at the college level! I was on color guard all four years and I get to help with the guard and twirler with our current group! We love marching band!!

 

[Pembo]

May I join this group? My husband is a Marching band director at the college level! I was on color guard all four years and I get to help with the guard and twirler with our current group! We love marching band!!

Welcome!!!! What college?

 

[FlightlessDuck]

Thursday is the pep rally and bonfire before homecoming. Since our daughter is a senior this year, we are supposed to attend the pep rally since seniors will be announced and have a little bio read about them. They will go through the seniors in all fall sports. That's 54 kids.

Friday is Homecoming. The marching band will play its show at the end of the game because the homecoming court is announced during halftime.

Saturday is a competition. The day of the Homecoming dance. So, we have to go to the competition and then pick our daughter up early so she can get changed for the dance.

Meanwhile, that same weekend we will have guests at the house (in-laws, to see the competition on Saturday).

And finally, due to the tornado watch in our area yesterday, practice was inside yesterday. Because we have the USBands State Championship competition next Saturday, the director decided to add a practice next Monday, Columbus Day. Our kids are off from school, but now we have to figure out how to get them to practice since we will both be at work. *sigh*

This weekend is going to stink.

 

[francis6306]

Welcome!!!! What college?

Eastern Illinois! We love the university and we have a GREAT group of kids! I get to hang out with the Feature Twirler and Color Guard… and my girls think that hanging with college age kids is totally normal! This will be fine until they hit HS, I'm sure…

 

[Pembo]

Eastern Illinois! We love the university and we have a GREAT group of kids! I get to hang out with the Feature Twirler and Color Guard… and my girls think that hanging with college age kids is totally normal! This will be fine until they hit HS, I'm sure…

How fun for your girls! We have an amazing twirler at our high school. She went to Europe this past August for worlds. I watched her twirling 3 batons when she was still in elementary school. We are lucky to have an awesome majorette instructor, a world champion himself.

Welcome to our thread!