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Post by jakeymam12 on Oct 1, 2023 11:01:05 GMT -6
Something to ponder about recently crossed my mind. I was wondering how many marching bands were in the US, but then I realized that a lot of those bands probably wouldn’t be considered ‘competitive’. Assuming competitive marching bands are bands that participate in at least 1 competition, how many do you guys thing there are?
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Post by philodemus on Oct 1, 2023 12:00:38 GMT -6
A friend of mine in music publishing once gave me an estimate of 7,000, using the ‘At least one competition’ definition.
Grain of salt and all.
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Post by ilikeguard on Oct 1, 2023 12:26:55 GMT -6
A friend of mine in music publishing once gave me an estimate of 7,000, using the ‘At least one competition’ definition. Grain of salt and all. And half of them were from Texas |
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Post by hewhowaits on Oct 1, 2023 12:37:22 GMT -6
May depend on how one defines "competition" as well.
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Post by mikekyu on Oct 3, 2023 22:29:58 GMT -6
A friend of mine in music publishing once gave me an estimate of 7,000, using the ‘At least one competition’ definition. Grain of salt and all. And half of them were from Texas And half of them are in the Hornrank Top 32 |
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Post by boahistorybuff on Oct 6, 2023 5:25:15 GMT -6
It would be interesting (if it were even possible) to break down based on those circuits that draw in top level competitors vs those that are for bands that may be from schools with lessor resources, or new emerging programs, etc.
For those more competitive circuits, I am thinking BOA, UIL, WBA, ISSMA, KMEA, USBands, etc
In Michigan for instance, we have the (M)ichigan (C)ompeting (B)and (A)ssociation for the bigger competitive programs versus the (S)cholastic (M)arching (B)ands for those program that are either emerging, have limited funds, are brand new, or don't want to place as much focus on competition (just give the kids the experience of performing). On a historical tangent, the SMB circuit in Michigan was actually started by Ted Bazany (director of Jenison at the time) in the late 80s/early 90s, who developed the circuit because of some displeasure with MCBA among many bands of western Michigan at the time. I think there is a lot of irony in that Jenison went on to be an MCBA powerhouse in the decades following.
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Post by N.E. Brigand on Oct 6, 2023 17:20:48 GMT -6
I count 199 competing high school marching bands from Ohio this year.
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Post by statechamp1239 on Oct 6, 2023 18:26:40 GMT -6
Could be wrong, but this year for New Jersey I've counted 221 Competitive bands with 18 Festival bands and 3 Showbands/Traditional band that I know of: Clifton, Camden, and Plainfield, and many football/parade only bands. The largest group size is below 38 members which make up 38% of my NJ bands list.
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Post by srv1084 on Oct 7, 2023 18:52:16 GMT -6
With the geographic representation we have on these forums, I'm sure we could crowdsource a rough estimate of how many competing bands there are in the US. For New England, below are the totals by state. Bands receiving even one competition score are listed as a "competing" band, and bands performing at a band exhibition (including state festival ratings) or in a festival class at a marching band show are listed as an exhibition band. No football-only bands listed. | State | Competing Bands | Exhibition Bands | | Massachusetts | 41 | 10 | | Connecticut | 35 | 4 | | Rhode Island | 3 | 0 | | Maine | 1 | 6 | | New Hampshire | 0 | 25 | | Vermont | 0 | 0 |
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Post by lostchoirguy on Oct 9, 2023 1:55:39 GMT -6
Would we count JV or non-varsity bands that also compete?
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Post by jakeymam12 on Oct 9, 2023 22:12:14 GMT -6
There’s 46 competitive marching bands this year in Utah going by the “at least 1 competition” definition I made.
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Post by jakeymam12 on Oct 9, 2023 22:13:28 GMT -6
Would we count JV or non-varsity bands that also compete? I would, but idk about everyone else |
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Post by hewhowaits on Oct 10, 2023 7:40:17 GMT -6
Would we count JV or non-varsity bands that also compete? I would, but idk about everyone else If they are competing, they meet the criterion of how many bands. If the question were "how many schools field competition bands?" the answer would be different. |
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Post by yayband914 on Oct 14, 2023 20:36:13 GMT -6
There are currently 29 in Wisconsin.
Hope that helps with your data set. 😂
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Post by allthingschaotic on Oct 15, 2023 14:18:07 GMT -6
There are 1,069 bands participating in the UIL Region marching evaluations in Texas. Since most schools strongly encourage participation in UIL, this should be most corps-style and military bands. There may be some rural schools or new schools missing (Almeta Crawford HS from Fort Bend is missing while Walnut Grove isn't. Both opened this year.) I'm not sure how show-style bands work, I just know there are a couple in urban schools. Also, some large schools like Coppell and Round Rock field JV bands, so the number of bands ≠ number of schools.
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Post by cybrunette on Oct 15, 2023 15:28:08 GMT -6
A quick Google search says as of January 2023 there are 20,469 total high schools in the US (private & public)... You can probably add another 100-200 for this school year. So roughly 35% of high schools have competitive marching bands if we go by that original around 7000 count
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Post by statechamp1239 on Oct 15, 2023 15:40:04 GMT -6
A quick Google search says as of January 2023 there are 20,469 total high schools in the US (private & public)... You can probably add another 100-200 for this school year. So roughly 35% of high schools have competitive marching bands if we go by that original around 7000 count I know weirdly enough California has a homeschool band competing in CSBC called the Sound Waves Home School MB |
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Post by lostinthebands on Oct 18, 2023 12:03:01 GMT -6
A quick Google search says as of January 2023 there are 20,469 total high schools in the US (private & public)... You can probably add another 100-200 for this school year. So roughly 35% of high schools have competitive marching bands if we go by that original around 7000 count would love to know how much “competitive” marching band has grown over the past 20+ years. Perhaps it’s just the world we live in now with being connected with one another virtually nonstop, but it feels like the relevance and overall trend of BOA has vastly grown throughout the last few decades. |
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Post by boahistorybuff on Oct 20, 2023 13:42:56 GMT -6
A quick Google search says as of January 2023 there are 20,469 total high schools in the US (private & public)... You can probably add another 100-200 for this school year. So roughly 35% of high schools have competitive marching bands if we go by that original around 7000 count would love to know how much “competitive” marching band has grown over the past 20+ years. Perhaps it’s just the world we live in now with being connected with one another virtually nonstop, but it feels like the relevance and overall trend of BOA has vastly grown throughout the last few decades. BOA, UIL, ISSMA, MCBA, KMEA, USbands, etc have all seen growth in the last 20 years. If you go back 40 years, it has been an exponential growth curve. |
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Post by kdivine on Oct 23, 2023 5:12:35 GMT -6
I don't have an exact number, but in AR, it is theoretically every school with a band. As part of program certification, all bands go through regional assessments for marching season in mid October and concert season in April. Some exception is given in October for small 1A schools with no football [i.e. Caddo Hills] that have no real point in marching.
The regional assessments are given a simple 1 [superior],2 [excellent], or 3 rating. 1s and 2s get to go to state in Little Rock. So this is a low key competition, but it is, after a fashion, the prelims for state, where you get precisely one run for good or for ill. State is run as class championship only, no overall winner, over 3 days around Halloween. There are 7 competitive classes, 2A [ie Mountain Pine] to 7A [ie Fayetteville, Bentonville West].
Our regional assessment was last Tuesday night at Hot Springs Lakeside. I was sitting near some of the kids from places like Fountain Lake [3A], where they might do one BOA affiliate comp per year, and Centerpoint [3A] for whom this was it, their Super Bowl: make a 2 and go to state or a 3 and stay home.
LSS, they got their 2, but it really was the same response that I saw when Lake Hamilton made semifinals at Indy in 2019. If I recall correctly, it's been some years since Centerpoint has made it to LR, and you would think they had beaten Flower Mound the way they cheered.
So I think we need to be a little expansive when we think of what competing is. There's a school in WV, Logan, which I follow on Tik Tok that hasn't even had a music program in several years. They put a drum line on the field this year, they're learning rock instruments so they can build a pit, and next year, maybe they'll have some horns. Guess what,at their level, those kids "competed" as hard as anyone you saw at a BOA regional this weekend, and they have won.
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Post by dbalash on Oct 23, 2023 15:34:48 GMT -6
By my count, Illinois has had 192 unique bands compete at least once this season.
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