Festival+Length+Suggestions

from a member of District 7: I vote for retaining a shortened Regional Festival and I'll start the comment ball rolling. Many of the qualitative variables in all Festival events universally defy control (unless PMEA has now learned how to line up the planets and make everyone attractive to everyone else). Schedule is one variable that needs constant, careful adjustment for positive effect simply because we all know about the law of diminishing returns. Let's be wise and allow the Regional "step" in the system to continue with modifications. Travel time is a sticking point in going to a two day Festival (can neither start toooo early nor have a late concert or folks will be excluded by the drive) but that's my vote - keep Regional Festivals in a two day format with a late afternoon Saturday concert. Hope someone out there will respond! Thanks - Sue Dieffenbach, Lebanon

Steve Luxbacher (District 3): Due to our interesting weather scenarios this festival season, we have been forced to experiment with a variety of different lengths of festivals, including start and end times. At both Region Band and Choir this year, the common agreement was that starting auditions early on the first night of the festival was beneficial to both students auditioning and teachers judging. The earlier concert time at Region Band (11:00 AM) was also met with appreciation by both students and parents. As far as length of time for the festival, all of our shortened festivals survived with a minimum amount of rehearsal, but with varying levels of quality. In fact, many of our band directors feel that in general, the current structure was too long, and at times, overly taxing on the students, both in endurance and in embouchure. However, to give the longest amount of time to the guest conductor and students, while still taking care of all of the "outside elements" as part of the festival (i.e. pictures, banquet, etc.), a two full day festival would still probably be necessary in some format. This could be Friday to Saturday night, Thursday night to Saturday morning, or sometime along those lines. Another thing that came up at our festivals was the need for a Friday night concert, in addition to the Saturday concert. This allows for extra revenue, and for the community to take part in the festival, as many of our auditoriums are small and cannot accommodate both the public, and the parents of the participants in one concert.

Glenn R. Cameron (D2):

We experienced the same scenario as D3 this year. W-S, T-S and W-F. All with good results... but W-S had the best results in all venues.