fauxjo

My personal feeling is that the main purpose of performance is for the audience's benefit. Judges are there to quantify how well a group does is pursuing the goal of giving a musically and visually rewarding experience to the audience. Therefore, a judge can best give an accurate ranking of this from an audience member's vantage point in the stands. From the field, phasing between the pit and battery sounds completely different than it does from the stands. So does dynamic interaction between the two. Plus, from the stands, everything is visible. If the front ensemble gets a nice little lick, but the judge assigned to them is backfield of them and watching the bass line, than a lot of performance and a lot of attention aren't really where they're best utilizes. All sections, no matter how far apart they are, are visible from the stands.