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When did halftime get hijacked?


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5 hours ago, Stu said:

I am not assuming what halftime is designed to be; it is for the support of the school spirit and entertainment of the football crowd, not a contest show run-through stage for the band. And all I am asking is if the halftime performances of the bands here support the school spirit and football crowd as opposed to presenting the contest show of the band?

When Football teams get the majority of funding from school districts compared to the arts, then the LEAST a marching  band can get is11 f###### minutes to perform their show. If you don't like the show go buy nachos or take a ####. That's what most people do during halftime anyway.

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In my neck of the woods (Boston) some school districts have bands from both schools perform, sometimes just the home team's school. It is not be that uncommon for presentations to be made at half time. We know most people do not go to the football games to see the bands, and while I appreciate what the bands do and the atmosphere they create, most consider them an extra. I know of some districts that do not have bands and few people miss them. Talk about a lack of appreciation. That being said, I know of cheerleader coaches who complain that cheerleaders are expected at each football and basketball game but very few go to their competitions.

In the not too distant future, there may be no half time shows anyway if school's continue to drop football programs. 

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The norm in my area of NJ is that visiting bands play pre-game if they even come. Home band does half-time.  We stopped attending some away games the past few  years, and if a game was Saturday we often left to attend a competition after performing, though we tried not to schedule a competition on a home game day. Sometimes band championships made that impossible.

Home-coming in our conference the time allotted for half-time is extended a bit. We do our show, and then the king/queen court stuff is done. We would cove up the band and play something soft while they announced the king and queen for homecoming. 

 

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7 hours ago, xandandl said:

In my area, bands only perform at home games if at all. In several parts of the country football isn't the cult that it is in Texas and the South.

I don't know if once regular practice hereabouts is kept up nowadays, but at 60-odd high school football games I attended in the late 80s and early 90s here in Ohio, I can't remember one where both bands didn't play at halftime.

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1 minute ago, N.E. Brigand said:

I don't know if once regular practice hereabouts is kept up nowadays, but at 60-odd high school football games I attended in the late 80s and early 90s here in Ohio, I can't remember one where both bands didn't play at halftime.

ok Ohio goes with Texas and the South.

So far New England area, New York, Jersey, some parts of Pennsyvania, Oregon, and some parts of California only send bands to home games for half times.

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6 hours ago, Stu said:

For halftime, does your band perform only things like the fight song/alma mater and all the various finger-snappin toe-tappin music; or does the band perform the 'contest' show which many times is self-service esoteric material with the fight song as you exit the field? The former is what football halftime is designed for which is exclusive school support and crowd entertainment; the latter is treating it like it is the concert stage for a dress run-through of the contest show and an educational platform for the audience.

My alma mater's contest show last year featured "Malaguena". When I was in high school, back in the 1980s, we never played the fight song during halftime. And we never competed at Bands of America, so we weren't all that. But the fight song was for preshow (and after every touchdown, not that there were two many of those).

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5 hours ago, skevinp said:

I'm not sure what you mean by "football crowds" but at my school more people came to watch the band than the football team, and we had a good team.  

Good point. I recently attended a high school game and about half the audience left after the halftime show.

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30 minutes ago, MikeD said:

The norm in my area of NJ is that visiting bands play pre-game if they even come. Home band does half-time.  We stopped attending some away games the past few  years, and if a game was Saturday we often left to attend a competition after performing, though we tried not to schedule a competition on a home game day. Sometimes band championships made that impossible.

Home-coming in our conference the time allotted for half-time is extended a bit. We do our show, and then the king/queen court stuff is done. We would cove up the band and play something soft while they announced the king and queen for homecoming. 

 

Easy Mike. You might give them apoplexy if those Texans discover that the rest of the world does other things on Friday nights rather than football games. 

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51 minutes ago, Brass Lover said:

When football teams get the majority of funding from school districts compared to the arts, then the LEAST a marching  band can get is 11 minutes to perform their show.

High school halftime here is 20 minutes, so bands tend to keep their halftime performances to about eight minutes.

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I believe Broken Arrow High School in Oklahoma has two marching bands: the Tradition of Broken Arrow plays the halftime shows while the Pride of Broken Arrow plays the contests.

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