Sweet Success - BBI at USU

News Blurb: "The Sky View Color Guard were the top performers, taking home the Color Guard Caption Award in the 5A Open Class Division at the Bridgerland Band Invitational held at Utah State University. The Sky View Marching Band captured the 3rd place trophy for their overall performance score of 847.33. American Fork placed 1st with a score of 872.33 and Davis High School took 2nd place with their score 852.58. Bands from across Utah and Idaho competed at BBI, an event hosted by the Mountain Crest Marching Band on 9/21/2013."

It was a beautiful day - just slightly breezy, which picked up, of course, right as the backdrops were being rolled to the line up place.  There were a few runaways as the large canvas photos become sails for their little carts.
Mr. Beach condensed the regular contest day preparations to accommodate those members of the band who had homecoming "day dates."  There were warm ups and stretches at the SV band field then everyone dressed in uniform and loaded buses to take that short trip to USU campus.  Students then immediately moved to the practice area in the parking lot and began their warm ups, tuning, and sound checks before lining up in the tunnel at the north side of Rommey Stadium.Sky View was slated to perform at 6:15pm, the first of the 5A bands, Many students planned to race off the field and dash home to change into formals for the Homecoming dance.
It was decided that the band should have a bit of extra energy and hydration right before they hit the field so as to be at their best for the performance.  Band moms set up a pit stop station between the warm up area and where the band would line up.  A chocolaty "kiss" from the mama's and a quick swig of Gatorade and the band was ready to go.
The sweet sendoff must have really helped because they sounded and performed amazingly!!  The Color Guard was completely ON and the judge loved it, giving them the most points of any other guard in 5A.

There were some from rival bands that reported after watching Sky View's show they predicted that we would take the day.  This bodes well for our chances of future successes.  The show is definitely a crowd favorite.
It was the first real test of getting on and off the field with all of the equipment, sound systems, backdrops, instruments, and panels.  The students did a great job in their assignments and things looked and sounded great!  There was a little bottleneck that happened getting off the field while trying to squeeze everything past the American Fork pit equipment, but it was a great first timed run.
Mr. Beach was very proud of how the band had performed.  He especially gave a shout out to the soloists and the sound as being perfect.  "I know.. and I know you do too.. that we still have a ways to go to get to where we want to be.  But you just played the show the best you could possibly have played it at this point in our season.  I hope you are just stoked and completely jazzed about coming to practice on Monday and making it even better!  I know that I am."  This was met with cheers and shouts of "Yeah!!"
Typically the band would stay and all together watch the rest of the bands compete and wait to hear the results. However, because of the SV Homecoming Dance, the band was dismissed immediately following the performance. All 3 drum majors had dates for the dance and so doubles had been elected and trained in the salute so as to be stand ins during the retreat and awards presentation.  There were not many of the band in attendance during the awards to hear the great results, but the news spread quickly by word of mouth (and text.)
Congratulations Band!  You are finally tasting some sweet success for all your hard work over the summer.  The cheers from the crowd and standing ovations should make you feel really great!  You've earned them!!  Keep up the good work!!