For those of you who have been everywhere and seen everything.....which states have the cream of the crop marching bands?
Ready....get set....GO!!!

I'm going to go with Texas.

It's all about Alaska.

(I'm obviously kidding.)

Honestly, I've seen a lot of great groups from all over the place. There seem to be quite a few from Texas, California, and parts of the midwest in particular.

Definitely not Oregon. Though, we do have some good bands around here.

And I've heard only good things about Texas bands, so I'm going to go with that. Texas.

Im going to go with texas on this one...
If we use BOA as a benchmark, look at the grand national placement VS texas regional placement...
2007 LD Bell
Nationals: 1st
Texas:2nd
2007 The Woodlands
Nationals 4th
Texas:3rd
2007 SFA
Nationals: 8th
Texas: DNP
2007 Richland
Nationals: 9th
Texas: 6th

Heres the point, every single band from texas (in AAA) made finals. secondly Had Marcus and Reagan showed up, (arguably of course) youd have a different GN champion (bell never beat marcus that fall) Centergrove and Harrison would have been out. making 6 of the 12 finalists from Texas.

look back at 2006, Bowie (boo-ey, not bow-ey) got 12th at nationals, but they didnt even make finals in texas, they got 13th. so the 12th best band in the country is only the 13th best in Texas. Makes me wish everyone could go every year. but then again other states would feel left out.

back to 2005, Richland got 5th in texas, and 7th at nationals but only 2 of the 6 bands that beat them in texas were in Indy.

Name another state where things are thats consistent over the ENTIRE state. Theres not.

Texas does seem to have a large concentration of great high school bands. However, I know that there are definitely pools of talented groups all over the nation. I think if you watch WGI, you can see that there are great bands all over. Texas is a weird combination. We have great high school bands but here is the other side of that. For some reason, DCI corps have really struggled here. Most kids head west, up the corn belt, or the east coast. Strange...no one really knows why we don't have any long standing corps here. I think one of the main reasons that there are many strong high school groups from the Dallas metro area is because of UNT being just an hour away. For some reason also, there are a lot of DCI alumni that come down here to teach. I think that is another reason as well. But I have seen some really great lines from all over the states.

All of the staff at your really good high schools, have jobs teaching for established corps already. the kids follow thier teachers. The ones that dont are used to being in the best groups in the country, the best instruction with the best design team. so thats where they audition. Its that simple.

Its not that there arent good groups elsewhere, its that 1)the average group is better, and 2)There are more national title contenders.

Indiana bands are great.

Sweet....that makes me feel better about my band....last year at the Texas state marching contest (3A) we got 14th.

CALIFORNIA!!!

Go Blue Devils!!!!