Scout House Tattoo Field Show And Weekend Events Details

Drum corps fans from across southern Ontario are snapping up as many as 30 advance tickets at a time for the 4th annual Preston Scout House Invitational Tattoo at University Stadium in Waterloo on Saturday, August 10. The line up featuring several top alumni drum and bugle corps, Canada’s best known marching band and one of the top competitive Drum Corps Associate (DCA) corps from Ontario, Quebec, New York and New Jersey make the Tattoo one of the highlights of the Scout House 75th anniversary year. The Band originated in 1938 as a new activity for boys of the 1st Preston Scout Troop.

Tattoo organizers expect the field show, starting at 6:30 pm, to draw spectators from a wide area across Ontario and upstate New York to watch many of the best-known units in the marching music world, including Caballeros Alumni of Hawthorne, New Jersey; Les Diplomates of Quebec City, Quebec; Empire Statesmen of Rochester, New York; Mighty St. Joe’s Alumni of Leroy, New York; Optimists Alumni of Toronto, Ontario; Teen Tour Band of Burlington, Ontario; Preston Scout House Cadets and Preston Scout House Band of Cambridge, Ontario. The Cambridge Kiwanis Boys Choir will sing the national anthems of Canada and the United States to open the show.

Members of other groups have been invited to participate in the special section performances, including Durham Girls alumni in the massed horn line rendition of You’ll Never Walk Alone. Scout House, Les Diplomates and Teen Tour Band members will stand together to perform Band of Brothers, one of the highlights of last year’s Tattoo.

Advance tickets are available at a number of business locations in Cambridge and Kitchener/Waterloo, including Centre in the Square Box Office, Queen Street, Kitchener (centreinthesquare.com); Swanson’s Home Building Centre, 166 Park Street, Kitchener; Preston Towne Home Hardware, 718 King Street East, Cambridge; Village Gate Home Hardware, Cedar Street, Cambridge (Galt); Glenbriar Home Hardware, 262 Weber Street N., Waterloo.

Tattoo events include more than the Saturday evening field show. Corps members and fans arriving early will be able to attend a Friday night social at the Knights of Columbus Hall, 333 Speedsville Road in Cambridge. The event will feature a cash bar and pub food along with generous servings of memorabilia and nostalgia.

A shuttle bus will run continuously from the hotels on Hespeler Road near Highway 401 to the Knights building, which is the winter rehearsal home of Scout House Band. Friday night visitors have already booked more than 130 hotel rooms.

Following practice sessions on Saturday, corps members will be able to sit at picnic tables under tall shade trees and socialize during a barbecue in the park adjoining University Stadium. Tickets are also in strong demand for the barbecue, planned and presented by Scout House members and other volunteers from the community.

In keeping with the nostalgic weekend theme, spectators and participants can walk a few steps across the stadium parking lot after the field show to attend an old-fashioned drum corps party in the Granite Club. Such parties, often held in Canadian and American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) branches, were the perfect windup to a contest day back when many of today’s alumni corps members marched in competing corps. The parties often extended into the small hours of the morning before corps members straggled back to the bus for the return trip home.

The Scout House 75th anniversary has already produced a number of highlights making the year particularly memorable. At a centre field ceremony immediately following the Band’s performance, Mayor Judy Wagner proclaimed Saturday July 6 to be Preston Scout House Band Day in Lewisburg, Pennsylvania, in honour of the Band’s close connection to Lewisburg over more half a century. Scout House appeared in the Cavalcade of Champions there 10 years in a row in the 1950s and 1960s, and has performed five times since 2008. Cambridge mayor Doug Craig travelled on the Band’s bus to Lewisburg to take part in the special anniversary events. The city of Cambridge gave Scout House a special anniversary grant of $7,500 this year in addition to the traditional $5,000 annual grant in support of Band activities.

Scout House won best band awards in two major parades earlier this summer: the Burlington Sound of Music Festival parade and the July 1 Canada Day Parade through the downtown business district of Preston. Both events are among the largest of their kind in the country and both attracted exceptionally large crowds this year.

Scout House Cadets youth drum line, formed last September as part of the anniversary year recruiting campaign, also marched in the hometown Canada Day parade. The anniversary campaign has helped boost total Band membership to more than 110 in 2013.

The Cadets were accompanied in the Canada Day parade by the Ventures colour guard, which normally operates as a winter guard. The joint outing by the two youth groups helped Scout House meet its mandate to promote marching music activities in Ontario.

The Band’s field show schedule continues through August with performances in Oshawa, Ontario; Rochester, New York and Annapolis, Maryland. The schedule also includes the popular Cactus Festival Parade in Dundas.

For more information about Scout House Band, contact Activities Director Nancy Weiler at telephone (519) 653-3376, email prestonscouthouseband [dot] adm [at] sympatico [dot] ca or visit the Web site at http://www.scouthouseband.com/

Information about Preston Scout House Cadets is available from Jim Pratt at: kusankusho [at] hotmail [dot] com

Regularly updated information about the Scout House Invitational Tattoo is available at: www.scouthousetattoo.com