Top Half / Bottom Half

[stix]

My opinion is, this is a safety mechanism to ensure the finals ranking is not too different from the semi-finals rankings. I know we have seen a band or two cross from the bottom half to the top half a time or two, but it is rare. If BOA wanted this to be unbiased, the finals performance slotting would be random and not split. Instead, we are putting bias in the judge's minds by using the split as to which bands are expected to perform higher/lower.

Change my mind  

[dbalash]

Nope. Reagan and Hebron both lost GN titles due to going on first, after placing first in semifinals.

That's why top 6/bottom 6 was implemented.

[josephbandfan]

How about the top 3 bands get a random spot in the second half. Then you randomize the remaining bands.

[thewho]

I just don't want the top contenders going on first. That's all.

[stix]

The 6/6 or 7/7 split has bothered me for years. To me, it diminishes the credibility of the contests. If you have to guide the judges on the rankings for finals, you might as well not have finals. By splitting the group, BOA gives the impression that judges cannot be objective and have to be guided on ranking the bands. The finals then become almost pageantry or ceremonial.

[stix]

Nov 18, 2021 11:41:32 GMT -6 dbalash said:

Nope. Reagan and Hebron both lost GN titles due to going on first, after placing first in semifinals.

That's why top 6/bottom 6 was implemented.

I don't understand why going on first ruins your chances in a group of 12 or 14 with a single panel of judges. I can see an early spot hurting a band when there are many bands and/or two separate panels. For example, say the best band out of 12 goes first in finals, and the single judge panel ranks that band as an 89.2. Since it is one panel and all the judges see that band as the best, they rank the other bands less than 89.2. Comparatively, as the bands go on you as a judge would see that they are not performing as well as the first band. To me, the scoring is irrelevant as long as the bands are ranked correctly. What am I missing?

[thewho]

Nov 18, 2021 13:18:35 GMT -6 stix said:

Nov 18, 2021 11:41:32 GMT -6 dbalash said:

Nope. Reagan and Hebron both lost GN titles due to going on first, after placing first in semifinals.

That's why top 6/bottom 6 was implemented.

I don't understand why going on first ruins your chances in a group of 12 or 14 with a single panel of judges. I can see an early spot hurting a band when there are many bands and/or two separate panels. For example, say the best band out of 12 goes first in finals, and the single judge panel ranks that band as an 89.2. Since it is one panel and all the judges see that band as the best, they rank the other bands less than 89.2. Comparatively, as the bands go on you as a judge would see that they are not performing as well as the first band. To me, the scoring is irrelevant as long as the bands are ranked correctly. What am I missing?

Hebron in 2015 was the literal first band to compete. The next Eagle competitors (who were within a point or so) didn't go until 6-8 bands later. You're telling me that's as good as seeing the bands back-to-back in the top 6?

I'm not happy with how the top 6 is ordered as of now but it's certainly better than the doomsday scenario above.

[stix]

Nov 18, 2021 13:41:55 GMT -6 thewho said:

Nov 18, 2021 13:18:35 GMT -6 stix said:

I don't understand why going on first ruins your chances in a group of 12 or 14 with a single panel of judges. I can see an early spot hurting a band when there are many bands and/or two separate panels. For example, say the best band out of 12 goes first in finals, and the single judge panel ranks that band as an 89.2. Since it is one panel and all the judges see that band as the best, they rank the other bands less than 89.2. Comparatively, as the bands go on you as a judge would see that they are not performing as well as the first band. To me, the scoring is irrelevant as long as the bands are ranked correctly. What am I missing?

Hebron in 2015 was the literal first band to compete. The next Eagle competitors (who were within a point or so) didn't go until 6-8 bands later. You're telling me that's as good as seeing the bands back-to-back in the top 6?

I'm not happy with how the top 6 is ordered as of now but it's certainly better than the doomsday scenario above.

I agree, comparatively back-to-back would be best. However, since a band went first, then there were other bands (potentially bands that would be in the bottom six nowadays) after that band and then other bands in the top six today, judges cannot objectively score the bands correctly. That doesn't sit right with me. That tells me there is so little difference in the bands that any top bands could move places between prelims/semi-finals and finals or the judging is flawed. Given the two options, I'm assuming that the judging is deficient since we have to have a system to keep this from happening.

I'm not trying to be difficult, I'm just digging in on something that has bugged me for a long time. 

[Allohak]

Maybe Reagan and Hebron didn't win those years despite leading after semifinals because their finals run wasn't as strong as their semifinals run, or someone else had a finals run that was more worthy of winning.

Just saying, they didn't not win because they performed first.

Just because 2 premises are true does not mean all conclusions which could potentially be drawn from those premises are also true.

[redpants]

Having the top half/bottom half split brings information into the finals that was not there before. in other words, it's not a completely new competition; the top half/bottom half information about semis placement makes it into finals. In fact, there is a lot more specific information, the semis placements and captions, making it in. After all, the judges must know what happened at semis (or prelims, for a regional) awards, right? It's public knowledge. That seems to me an even more likely influence on the outcome.

I'm also trying to formulate a thought, and don't really have time right now, but it's something along the lines of: Is it preferable that the two stages of a regional or three stages of GN be formulated as completely independent contests? Or should favorable early placing accrue benefits to a band that has a good showing early, to make their path easier later on? Most sporting leagues with a post-season give favorable playoff positioning—home games and/or byes—to teams that performed better in the regular season. Should marching band not do something similar over the weekend?

[abtwitch]

An idea I've had for most of the season is you average the prelims scores of the finalists and make the splits based on the boundary. The biggest advantage to this system is blurring the line of who is top and bottom half as it can change from contest to contest, which should help with a lot of the issues we see with the current system. I'll give a few examples to demonstrate it better in a Google Sheets document I'll let everyone access.

First example is what feels like a pretty "average" regional with no big gaps at the very top, BOA Bedford. This one actually gives us more interesting results with a 4/8 Top-Bottom split, which due to the fact that there are three bands far ahead of the rest of the pack instead of just one. The top and bottom split is actually overwhelmingly clear in this case, the only band that could be "robbed" in this scenario is Keller, who passed Coppell after a much stronger finals performance. But other than that, I really like the way this regional splits as L.D. Bell's top half finish was quite controversial and likely made easier by the 6/6 split. 

Second, I'm going to do BOA Orlando as most would think that having such a large gap between 1st and 2nd would skew the results, but that is typically not true in my experience. BOA Orlando gives us a 5/7 Top-Bottom split using prelims scores. This regional was one of the few that had a band jump between halves, with Catawba Ridge and Windermere swapping placements of 5th and 7th. Not much else I have to say for this one.

Next I'll do an early-season regional, as those tend to be a lot more dynamic. I'm reaching back to 2019 since the early season regionals this year weren't particularly normal cases (McAllen finals canceled and a long delay in judging, Dayton had Carmel win by 5 points and I already have an example like that in Orlando, and Atlanta only had 10 bands attend). I am choosing McAllen 2019 and expanding it to 12 finalist for the sake of the experiment to make it more in-line with what we might see in the future. We actually get a perfect 6/6 split and it doesn't seem to bad of a split to me.

Fourth I will be doing is BOA St. Louis as an example for a smaller, one panel Super Regional. This one is probably the most egregious with a 6/8 split, but I'd associate that more with some questionable judging likely due to there only being one panel. I won't get into my opinions too much, but Prosper being bottom split is a very big change considering they jumped all the way to 4th in finals. If anything, I feel this just highlights the advantages of a 2 panel system with in-depth numbers management like we saw at San Antonio this year.

Speaking of which, let's see how San Antonio would have turned out! This is the first one in my examples where there are actually more in the top split than there are in the bottom split, and I can't think of a contests where that would make more sense than here. Vista Ridge being thrown into the mix of some of the top band may have led to some interesting results as I thought their finals run was significantly better than their prelims run despite their drop in placements. 

Lastly, let's see how it would have affected the big dogs up in Indianapolis! There are no changes to the top/bottom split and I didn't have any issues with it anyways so I don't have much else to say about this one.

All of the data for my examples can be found here. If you want to see how other regionals play out, feel free to make a copy of the spreadsheet or ask me and I can get around to adding more when I have the time. My closing statement is that this may not be a perfect system, but it's more than clear the system we have now isn't either. We won't really know how much this will effect the judging unless it's actually done (I doubt it will be tried, but if it is then I will take all the credit cause I'm like that), but I think this could fix a lot of the subconscious mental blocks both judges and we as viewers struggle with when we already know who is "good" and who is "not as good as the good." 

EDIT: I forgot to say why I think that having a split is good. With complete randomness, you get bands sometimes drawing unlucky and going first even though they are favored to win the contest or come close (like Carmel at ISSMA this year, finishing over a point behind Avon after going first inn finals). It's good to have bands competing around other bands they should place near so that you're comparing them to who is most relevant. A simple 6/6 split (or any split based purely on placement) sometimes isn't the most reliable because you can be incredibly close to the band below, but then get grouped into the "good" group even though you maybe closer in competition to the "not as good as the good" group. 

[abtwitch]

I just realized where this thread is, I'll move it to Marching Band General since that is more true to what this topic is about.

[redpants]

Not gonna quote abtwitch’s entire suggestion but I do like the idea of keeping the split without making it explicit where the line is, thus keeping the topmost bands later while not imparting as much information to the judges. But they still will know the top three from each class, isn’t that likely to introduce bias?

Also a question—is your implication that Carmel going first at ISSMA could have cost them a whole point vs. Avon? Had they been pipped by a tenth or two I might have thought they got a raw deal but a whole point seems like a lot. Is there conventional wisdom on roughly how much a first-spot performance costs a band vs. competitors middle- or late-show? Does going first impose some sort of burden other than the judges “holding back points” for later?

[abtwitch]

Nov 18, 2021 20:15:07 GMT -6 redpants said:

Not gonna quote abtwitch’s entire suggestion but I do like the idea of keeping the split without making it explicit where the line is, thus keeping the topmost bands later while not imparting as much information to the judges. But they still will know the top three from each class, isn’t that likely to introduce bias?

Also a question—is your implication that Carmel going first at ISSMA could have cost them a whole point vs. Avon? Had they been pipped by a tenth or two I might have thought they got a raw deal but a whole point seems like a lot. Is there conventional wisdom on roughly how much a first-spot performance costs a band vs. competitors middle- or late-show? Does going first impose some sort of burden other than the judges “holding back points” for later?

We see class placement shakeups all the time, I don't think that has ever been an issue nor would it be one under my system.

And yes, generally going first in finals can skew results against you as you take in more and more information, it's hard to remember exactly how good a band was and the natural tendency in that scenario seems to be to underrate them. I don't think Carmel would have necessarily beaten Avon if ISSMA had a top/bottom split like BOA, but I don't think the weather reports would have shown a full 1 degree difference between their temperatures. Both Avon and Carmel were neck-in-neck this year and it probably could have gone either way. 

[OldSchoolTrumpet]

Nov 18, 2021 13:18:35 GMT -6 stix said:

Nov 18, 2021 11:41:32 GMT -6 dbalash said:

Nope. Reagan and Hebron both lost GN titles due to going on first, after placing first in semifinals.

That's why top 6/bottom 6 was implemented.

I don't understand why going on first ruins your chances in a group of 12 or 14 with a single panel of judges. I can see an early spot hurting a band when there are many bands and/or two separate panels. For example, say the best band out of 12 goes first in finals, and the single judge panel ranks that band as an 89.2. Since it is one panel and all the judges see that band as the best, they rank the other bands less than 89.2. Comparatively, as the bands go on you as a judge would see that they are not performing as well as the first band. To me, the scoring is irrelevant as long as the bands are ranked correctly. What am I missing?

Well, first of all, panels don't rank bands with scores like 89.2.  Individual caption judges assign caption scores that are combined with various weightings into a final total score. But here's the problem for a group like Hebron in 2015. In semifinals they received a score of 19.9 from one MGE judge. They received 19.8's from the other MGE judge, the MPE judge, and the VPE judge. It's useful to note that they performed at the tail end of semifinals.

There's no chance they could have gotten those same caption scores performing 1st in finals. If a judge lays down a 19.9 on the first of 12 bands, what is he/she to do if he/she sees 6 better example later?  So numbers management dictates that you'd need to leave room to potentially slot in x number of groups. So Hebron out of the gate was virtually guaranteed to not be able to reproduce their semifinals score.

Now, I hear what you're saying. Regardless of what the first group scores the judges ought to be able to manage numbers around that. If Hebron's 19.9 in semis was only a 19.5 in finals due to numbers management and the judge sees nothing better, than it should still be the high score. But that's wishful thinking and everyone knows that scores tend to rise during the course of a competition, especially a high powered finals situation like GN's. 

Of course, the other half of this that few people consider, is what would Hebron's semifinal's score have been had they performed 4th, rather than 29th on that Saturday afternoon? Would they have gotten those 19.8's and 19.9's? Maybe not. Or actually, probably not. We talk about how unlucky they were with the evening draw, but the afternoon draw was gold. 

[stix]

Nov 19, 2021 8:35:55 GMT -6 OldSchoolTrumpet said:

Nov 18, 2021 13:18:35 GMT -6 stix said:

I don't understand why going on first ruins your chances in a group of 12 or 14 with a single panel of judges. I can see an early spot hurting a band when there are many bands and/or two separate panels. For example, say the best band out of 12 goes first in finals, and the single judge panel ranks that band as an 89.2. Since it is one panel and all the judges see that band as the best, they rank the other bands less than 89.2. Comparatively, as the bands go on you as a judge would see that they are not performing as well as the first band. To me, the scoring is irrelevant as long as the bands are ranked correctly. What am I missing?

Well, first of all, panels don't rank bands with scores like 89.2.  Individual caption judges assign caption scores that are combined with various weightings into a final total score. But here's the problem for a group like Hebron in 2015. In semifinals they received a score of 19.9 from one MGE judge. They received 19.8's from the other MGE judge, the MPE judge, and the VPE judge. It's useful to note that they performed at the tail end of semifinals.

There's no chance they could have gotten those same caption scores performing 1st in finals. If a judge lays down a 19.9 on the first of 12 bands, what is he/she to do if he/she sees 6 better example later?  So numbers management dictates that you'd need to leave room to potentially slot in x number of groups. So Hebron out of the gate was virtually guaranteed to not be able to reproduce their semifinals score.

Now, I hear what you're saying. Regardless of what the first group scores the judges ought to be able to manage numbers around that. If Hebron's 19.9 in semis was only a 19.5 in finals due to numbers management and the judge sees nothing better, than it should still be the high score. But that's wishful thinking and everyone knows that scores tend to rise during the course of a competition, especially a high powered finals situation like GN's. 

Of course, the other half of this that few people consider, is what would Hebron's semifinal's score have been had they performed 4th, rather than 29th on that Saturday afternoon? Would they have gotten those 19.8's and 19.9's? Maybe not. Or actually, probably not. We talk about how unlucky they were with the evening draw, but the afternoon draw was gold. 

There is no bottom half top half split in prelims, which is impossible because we don't yet have scores. But what if Hebron or Regan had gone first in Prelims? Wouldn't the time have impacted them the same way? So if we don't make special accommodations in prelims, why do we do it in finals? I can only speculate that the split was created due to backlash that BOA had to address when unfavorable placement occurred between prelims and finals. Of course, by creating the split, you inject additional bias into the judging, and we still have bands negatively impacted by the slotting, but "since these are the bottom half bands, it doesn't matter." The split feels like a way to game the system to ensure prelim numbers and final numbers are similar, making finals more pageantry and show than competition. Before finals even start, you know who will be in the top and who will be in the bottom, and beyond that, due to the awards after prelims, you may have a pretty good idea of who will be first, second, and third, but that's a discussion for another time. Honestly, If time slotting is part of the game, and your draw determines your slot, you should play what you drew with no special accommodations. In my mind, that is just part of the game and the luck of the draw. Everyone has an equal chance, and just because one band is a higher performer than another doesn't mean we should provide special accommodations. I know this is probably not a popular opinion. I will step off of my soapbox now. 

[OldSchoolTrumpet]

Nov 19, 2021 9:53:27 GMT -6 stix said:

Nov 19, 2021 8:35:55 GMT -6 OldSchoolTrumpet said:

Well, first of all, panels don't rank bands with scores like 89.2.  Individual caption judges assign caption scores that are combined with various weightings into a final total score. But here's the problem for a group like Hebron in 2015. In semifinals they received a score of 19.9 from one MGE judge. They received 19.8's from the other MGE judge, the MPE judge, and the VPE judge. It's useful to note that they performed at the tail end of semifinals.

There's no chance they could have gotten those same caption scores performing 1st in finals. If a judge lays down a 19.9 on the first of 12 bands, what is he/she to do if he/she sees 6 better example later?  So numbers management dictates that you'd need to leave room to potentially slot in x number of groups. So Hebron out of the gate was virtually guaranteed to not be able to reproduce their semifinals score.

Now, I hear what you're saying. Regardless of what the first group scores the judges ought to be able to manage numbers around that. If Hebron's 19.9 in semis was only a 19.5 in finals due to numbers management and the judge sees nothing better, than it should still be the high score. But that's wishful thinking and everyone knows that scores tend to rise during the course of a competition, especially a high powered finals situation like GN's. 

Of course, the other half of this that few people consider, is what would Hebron's semifinal's score have been had they performed 4th, rather than 29th on that Saturday afternoon? Would they have gotten those 19.8's and 19.9's? Maybe not. Or actually, probably not. We talk about how unlucky they were with the evening draw, but the afternoon draw was gold. 

There is no bottom half top half split in prelims, which is impossible because we don't yet have scores. But what if Hebron or Regan had gone first in Prelims? Wouldn't the time have impacted them the same way? So if we don't make special accommodations in prelims, why do we do it in finals? I can only speculate that the split was created due to backlash that BOA had to address when unfavorable placement occurred between prelims and finals. Of course, by creating the split, you inject additional bias into the judging, and we still have bands negatively impacted by the slotting, but "since these are the bottom half bands, it doesn't matter." The split feels like a way to game the system to ensure prelim numbers and final numbers are similar, making finals more pageantry and show than competition. Before finals even start, you know who will be in the top and who will be in the bottom, and beyond that, due to the awards after prelims, you may have a pretty good idea of who will be first, second, and third, but that's a discussion for another time. Honestly, If time slotting is part of the game, and your draw determines your slot, you should play what you drew with no special accommodations. In my mind, that is just part of the game and the luck of the draw. Everyone has an equal chance, and just because one band is a higher performer than another doesn't mean we should provide special accommodations. I know this is probably not a popular opinion, and I understand that no one probably cares what I have to say. I will step off of my soapbox now. 

Unpopular opinion? I'm familiar with those. It's all good, my friend. I'm not sure it's really an unpopular opinion though. I'm sure many would side with you on this. 

And you make a good point that if Finals is to be seeded in some way, then it's only fair that semis be seeded as well. And if Semis is seeded, then what about Prelims? The poor group going on Thursday at 9 AM is hosed all weekend long, right? But obviously there's only a certain amount that can be done and depending on which side on some invisible line you're on, it will either be perceived as fair, or unfair. 

I think in this case MFA/BOA has decided that they'd like to tilt the table such that a potential champion is not unduly harmed by an early stating slot. The downside is that a group in the 7-9 slot may be denied a good shot of improving their position in Finals. It's a trade-off. I suppose that in the end I'd suggest that the middle positions are really less important than insuring the most equitable competition for the top slot. But I can see why others might disagree. 

[srv1084]

I personally love the split and the overall advancement methodology. DCI and WGI often get complaints of slotting, and I can understand that complaint and how that order may subconsciously affect someone's comparison of those groups. Regardless of the top 6/bottom 6 split, I would never argue slotting as there's still no way of knowing exactly where bands landed. There's enough flexibility there to allow for reduced bias (not that I have ever thought there was any judging bias to begin with - these are the best of the best).

Prelims - This isn't about ranking bands and assigning a prelims winner. This is about ensuring you get the right bands into a smaller pool of semis competition to then narrow the playing field for the eventual finals competition. Also, good luck establishing any sort of ranking system for performance times when you have 100 bands managing travel and logistics.

Semis - With the exception of class champions/awards, this also isn't about assigning a winner. It's about ensuring you get the right bands into finals. Realistically, even if the "next 8" were included in the same random draw as the top 22, there is enough of a drop-off that those bands would have little to no chance of advancing to finals and would at most jump up a few placements. I have never watched a "next 8" band and thought they were robbed of a finalist placement.

Finals - Realistically, does anybody expect the band that finished 12th in semis to have a chance at medaling? These are the best bands in the country. They perform at their current achievement levels on a fairly consistent basis with far less variety than, say, the 40th-50th place bands at this competition. The perfect storm would be necessary for a lower placing band to medal, like the 12th place band performing better than they ever have across the board a mere 5-10 hours after their semis performance, coupled with the 1st-11th place bands ALL ranging from either falling apart to performing well below their prior levels to allow for that band to jump up to a medal. It's just not going to happen, regardless of performance order. Again, these are the most qualified judges in the country. A few placements may move, but not drastically, regardless of performance order. The fact is that the top 7 remained exactly the same all weekend with no defined performance order in the prior rounds.

At the end of the day, this is still a pageantry activity as someone mentioned. Having the potential to watch the top 3 bands go first and the bottom three bands go last doesn't make for as exciting of a finals competition as the current structure. The current structure is not completely random, but it's also not based solely on slotting order. Every scenario will result in someone complaining that performance order is unfair, so why not find the right middle ground? This is it for me, personally.

[stix]

Nov 19, 2021 12:52:41 GMT -6 srv1084 said:

I personally love the split and the overall advancement methodology. DCI and WGI often get complaints of slotting, and I can understand that complaint and how that order may subconsciously affect someone's comparison of those groups. Regardless of the top 6/bottom 6 split, I would never argue slotting as there's still no way of knowing exactly where bands landed. There's enough flexibility there to allow for reduced bias (not that I have ever thought there was any judging bias to begin with - these are the best of the best).

Prelims - This isn't about ranking bands and assigning a prelims winner. This is about ensuring you get the right bands into a smaller pool of semis competition to then narrow the playing field for the eventual finals competition. Also, good luck establishing any sort of ranking system for performance times when you have 100 bands managing travel and logistics.

Semis - With the exception of class champions/awards, this also isn't about assigning a winner. It's about ensuring you get the right bands into finals. Realistically, even if the "next 8" were included in the same random draw as the top 22, there is enough of a drop-off that those bands would have little to no chance of advancing to finals and would at most jump up a few placements. I have never watched a "next 8" band and thought they were robbed of a finalist placement.

Finals - Realistically, does anybody expect the band that finished 12th in semis to have a chance at medaling? These are the best bands in the country. They perform at their current achievement levels on a fairly consistent basis with far less variety than, say, the 40th-50th place bands at this competition. The perfect storm would be necessary for a lower placing band to medal, like the 12th place band performing better than they ever have across the board a mere 5-10 hours after their semis performance, coupled with the 1st-11th place bands ALL ranging from either falling apart to performing well below their prior levels to allow for that band to jump up to a medal. It's just not going to happen, regardless of performance order. Again, these are the most qualified judges in the country. A few placements may move, but not drastically, regardless of performance order. The fact is that the top 7 remained exactly the same all weekend with no defined performance order in the prior rounds.

At the end of the day, this is still a pageantry activity as someone mentioned. Having the potential to watch the top 3 bands go first and the bottom three bands go last doesn't make for as exciting of a finals competition as the current structure. The current structure is not completely random, but it's also not based solely on slotting order. Every scenario will result in someone complaining that performance order is unfair, so why not find the right middle ground? This is it for me, personally.

I love a good debate and hearing other people's points of view!

I don't think there is any way the 12th band is going to win, much less break into the top six. The way I see it, there is potential movement in the top three, bottom three, and middle six. I could see the 12th rated band in prelims move to 11th, or the 2nd band in prelims move to 1st. Once you establish the top 6 bottom 6 split, it seems you essentially pigeonhole the bands in the middle to move within their designated 6. Before I give a real-world example of the middle six; I want to say, I am not trying to discredit or take credit away from any program. I think all these bands are incredible, I respect them all, and I love to watch them perform! However, I do believe the 6/6 split drives potential bias, whether it is unconscious or conscious. If we look at Marcus, Ronald Regan and CTJ in San Antonio Super Regionals CTJ Placed 3rd with a score of 94.725, Ronald Reagan placed 5th 93.975, and Marcus placed 7th with a score of 91.9. There is a 2.375 point difference with Reagan and a 2.825 point difference with CTJ. Those are both pretty significant gaps in performance ratings to close in a week. Now we go to Grand Nats, and Marcus ends up 6th, CTJ 7th, and Reagan 9th. Had the 6/6 split not been there, would these placings have been different? Did CTJ and Reagan just not have as good of runs as they had in San Antonio? Did Marcus have a bad run in San Antonio and an exceptional run at Grand Nats? Did CTJ and Reagan remain in the bottom 6 because that's where they were placed to perform for finals? Did Marcus stay in the top 6 because that's where they placed to perform for finals? Maybe, maybe not, but it sure does make you wonder...or at least it makes me wonder.

[marimba11]

Nov 18, 2021 12:16:43 GMT -6 josephbandfan said:

How about the top 3 bands get a random spot in the second half. Then you randomize the remaining bands.

I like this!

[ilikeguard]

While I’m sure there’s always a “better” way to do something, I don’t think BOA would do things the way they’re being done if they believed it was blatantly unfair. It’s done the way it’s done for a reason. There are more people who debate and discuss the theory of band scoring besides just us in here

[marchingmaniac]

There are definitely issues with the top half/bottom half split in terms of scoring between the two halves and the ability of bands to be able to jump into the top half, but to be honest I don't think there are any easy fixes to the problem. I still think it is preferable to before when a first place band in prelims/semis like Hebron in 2015 finds themselves performing first and essentially guaranteed to not win finals.

[marimba11]

I wasn’t there but BA definitely deserved to win 2015, Avon is a toss up in 2nd in my opinion.

I’d like to give abtwitch’s idea a shot because it says that there are better bands towards the end (which I agree is nice for a build up) but you don’t know who “exactly,” is on the fringe between top and bottom half of the avg. Which is the main issue in the middle 5 or so bands