euphman wrote:There already are championships for field, but what about parade? <snip>
The Long Beach All-Western Band Review was the first, although unofficial, parade championships. It was (with a few exceptions - a LONG story of political intrigue best saved for another time) an SCSBOA-adjudicated event from at least the early 60s until its demise in 1983 (I think, VORE?). The event also attracted a significant number of the best of the Central and Northern California Bands. A slightly less prestigious event was held for awhile the day before the All-Western called the California Band Review and it was a non-SCSBOA event. It also featured a diverse group of Southern, Central, and Northern California bands since many of the bands participated in both events that weekend. (Thanksgiving weekend, by the way.)
With the demise of the All-Western Band Review, the unofficial parade championships became the West Arcadia Band Review (now a part of the renamed Arcadia Festival of Bands). Unfortunately, this event rarely if ever involves any bands outside Southern California. But it ALWAYS has all the best parade bands in Southern California.
The original Tournament of Champions was an attempt to try to create a championship for bands that were competitive both in parade and field. Looking through the SCSBOA Newsletters reveals that for only a year or two was TOC proclaimed to be an official SCSBOA Championship event. The original Tournament of Champions was scheduled for the first Saturday in December, avoiding the Thanksgiving weekend. (It may have started when All-Western was still around. I can't get to my detailed notes right now.) All units were required to perform in both the parade and field events. At its peak, the TOC was **THE** event to attend. TOC rarely had any bands from outside Southern California.
For a number of political and financial reasons TOC dropped the parade portion of the event. Many of the directors had second thoughts about attending a field-only event so late in the year. If they dropped TOC, marching season would end two weeks earlier with Arcadia (for parade) and Savanna (for field). At this point, many of the top bands quit going to TOC, obviously making the event less of a true "championship," even for those attending. The de facto championships in Southern California were then Arcadia (parade) and Savanna (field).
Once Arcadia secured a decent field for competition (Citrus College - one of the best around), they were able to attract some of the great field bands as well, attracting many of the parade/field bands that had previously gone to Savanna. Arcadia became the Southern California Championships for Parade and Combined Parade/Field. The only reason they weren't in consideration for Championships for Field is because they require their field participants to also participate in the parade competition. Some of the top field bands don't participate in parades, so they don't attend Arcadia. Therefore Arcadia can't be considered a field championship.
The only disappointment with the Arcadia Festival of Bands is that one of the great bands never competes there - the Arcadia Apache Marching Band. For that reason, I'm not sure if Arcadia is really a true championship either, although it has always been my favorite event.
As someone who has been involved in the parade activity for, well let's just say a goodly number of years, I can say that I would not be in favor of an SCSBOA-run parade championship for a number of reasons.
1) It would require that SCSBOA mandate a single classification system for all qualifying events. The events as they exist today have very different characters and personalities and different strengths and weaknesses. Some events feature mostly local groups. Other events have developed into mid-season championships. Current classification can be either by school enrollment (traditional method) or by previous year's season ranking. In either case the event has the option of pre-establishing classification (e.g., Class C = school enrollment 1500-1650 or Class C = ranking from 100-150) or customized event classification (e.g., listing the bands in school enrollment or ranking order, then dividing the bands into equal classes). An SCSBOA run championship would require pre-established classifications and result in many events being "overbooked" in some classes and "underbooked" in others. The event could choose to accept only so many bands into each class, rather than only so many bands into the entire event.
2) The current crop of Band Reviews have been around for awhile. They have spent a great deal of money, thought, and time to establish the reputations and prestige they now have. Establishing a new "championship" event would be injurious to the existing events, making them nothing more than qualifying events. For those of you that don't know it, band reviews are not good financial investments. Judges, trophy, city fees (police, fire, permits), insurance, etc. are not balanced by entry fees. You don't charge admission. The parade band in Southern California is still in decline. I don't think you want to further jeopardize the activity by creating an event that just might financially ruin others. If every event is of equal value in qualifying, then why attend the most competitive events? I think creating a new parade championship event could bring about the end of band reviews, sooner rather than later.
3) Aside from ultimate bragging rights, what is the purpose of a championship? Just read through the posts on the various championships results and you'll see that no one agrees with the judges. People whine about scores not going up from week to week. People whine about judges being biased. People whine about judges not being open to "their kind of music." People whine about the advantages of having a large band.
Do you folks not understand the concept of subjective?
What may sound bright to one judge may sound strident to another. One judge may be recently familiar with a particular march and be listening for that troublesome out-of-tune chord in the first strain, the other judge may be focused on some other aspect of the music and miss that chord. The local acoustics can really affect the sound that reaches the judges. The tall buildings in Long Beach and Santa Monica always made the sound that much fuller. Chino, Placentia, Loara, La Palma, and Arcadia don't have that advantage. The acoustic stage is different at every event. Not to mention the fact that the sound reaching the judges on the judging stand is much different than the sound on the street.
There are a lot of factors other than hard work and pride that go into a group's score. The judges are supposed to score what they see and/or hear. It is entirely possible that the judges saw and/or heard something completely different than what even a knowledgeable spectator may have seen or heard. This isn't a race where the best time wins. Nor is it a game where the most points win. It is a competitive art form, where the best impression wins. Not everyone's impression of a given performance is the same. That's true for judges too. The parade or field performance is an interpretation. There can be as many interpretations of any given act as there are performers. Likewise, there can be as many different opinions of the impression of the performance as there are listeners, let alone judges.
I think most people understand that any of the top bands could be the winner on any given day. Your band may have had some kind of problem getting to the event and had to perform in a rush. Your performance may have become so mechanically correct that it is no longer musical. The wind on a given day could make your auxiliary suffer more with their equipment than the auxiliary without equipment that you usually beat when there is no wind. There must be a million reasons why your group scores better or worse than you think they should. Once you start focusing on score consistency (at a given event or from week to week) you are doomed to frustration. Subjective judging, by its very nature, isn't necessarily consistent. Imagine judging a single sound element - volume. If the performances are random anyone would have difficult determining if band 4 was as loud or louder than band 33, two hours later. Now multiply that difficulty by the number of elements that make up the music, M&M, and showmanship scores. You want ultimate consistency? Good luck. The scores are WAY, WAY more consistent than they were 10 years ago. Many events have watered down their scores by adding duplicate judges and averaging scores. This sounds like democracy in action, but in reality, from a mathematical standpoint, all it does is reinforce bands that the judges agree on and lessen the gains or losses for bands that the judges disagree on. [What makes you think the higher score is the correct one?] Go figure.
So you want to establish a single championship event that crowns a singe band the champion. How valid is that title if the band that has been undefeated all season, beating every other band competing, doesn't win the championship? Whatever the results of the "championships," you are still only rating that day's performance. The fact that the day may be the last day of the season gives the title a certain amount of weight, but it still won't seem "fair" for those bands that for whatever reason, scored lower than they did the rest of the season.
4) Personally, I think a season ranking derived from all the season's scores is the most reasonable ranking. You couldn't claim it to be the indicator for any particular day or particular competition, but it gives a good indication of general season ranking. If you want a snapshot ranking of the groups on a particular day, you will need to have them not only compete simultaneously at the same time of day, but also require that their performances be at least as good as all previous performances. Anything less would not really be "fair," would it?
Is there really a reason we need to be able to say more than "my band won [these awards] at [these events]?" People who know the activity and the events know what those awards mean. People unfamiliar with the activity don't care. There were over 200 bands competing in parade competitions last year. One of them ranked 200. Are they better off telling their friends they placed 200th or that they won 2nd place at the Fillmore Parade?
JMO
(I apparently have way too much time on my hands!)