Friday night marks a notable milestone in this year’s marching band season with the premiere of the band’s competitive show that they will perform at halftime, a performance that will directly impact their focus as they move into their first competition of the year at the Denton Golden Triangle on Saturday.

For many returning members, the structure of the season has proved to be quite different due to the decision to include, learn, and perform a spirit show for the first few football games while also piecing together parts of their competitive show at the same time.

“This year, there’s definitely a lot more marching and choreography and music,” senior Olivia Brucker said. “It’s just a lot, which is really exciting because this year’s show really contrasts with every other show I’ve experienced, but I’m super excited to see where that takes us. I think [the spirit show] was a really good addition, but I feel like if we would’ve taken time to put more practice into it, it would’ve had a better reaction not only from the crowd but also from the band.”

With October being a busy month of Saturday contests, the band is able to focus solely on improving their competitive show now that their spirit show will not be performed.  

“The goal of the spirit show was to have a way that, from the beginning, we could all participate as a whole to gain experience throughout the beginning part of our season without feeling the pressure of a competitive show,” associate director of bands Zachary Anderson said. “With a spirit show, obviously we were learning two things at once, but because it was new, it put us back just a little bit. Now that we’re in full-swing competitive season, our focus is driven more to the competitive show, and we feel really good about where we are in the timeline and are looking forward to the next few shows to come.”

As the band transitions from spirit show to competition season, Anderson says their rehearsals throughout the week are getting them ready in for the competitive show’s premiere.

“What we give in the day-to-day is really what contributes to what our end goal is,” Anderson said. “With a great process comes a great product, so I hope we’re able to take away great things [from the performance] based on all the things we’ve done leading up to our final show.”