Alexandria, Minnesota

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Vikingland Band Festival to implement Tri-State Judges Association's new classification formula

Band size to be factored along with primary component of school size

Parades across Minnesota will be transitioning in 2009 to a new system for determining how bands are grouped into classes of competition. The system uses a formula that still uses school size as the primary component, but will now also factor in the band size.

The system was developed and refined with feedback from band directors, judges and parade committees.

Goals of the new system are many:

• Consistency of classification. In the past, local committees have used different approaches to determining class. This resulted in some bands competing in class A one day and class AAA the next ... a scenario that was confusing.

• Equalization of bands in each class. Sometimes using strict size parameters (such as, schools with enrollment of 500 to 1000 are Class AAA), resulted in few bands in one class with many bands in another class. Under the new system, if a parade has 10 bands and 2 classes, the ideal balance would be 5 bands in each class, or perhaps 4 in one class and 6 in another.

• Classifying bands with their peers. Quality and excellence can exist at any level of marching band: big band, small band, big school, small school. This formula takes into account both the school size and the band size.

How the new system works

• School size is still the primary factor, and carries 2/3 weight. Band size is now added as a factor and carries 1/3 weight.

• Band directors are to report their number of band members to Tri-State Judges Association by May 25. This will allow time for the association to prepare judging sheets and for committees to finalize their parade details.

• School size will be gathered from the Minnesota State High School League website which displays enrollment numbers for grades 9-12.

Here's a hypothetical example for a parade that has 14 bands and 3 classes.
a) The band lineup is entered onto a spreadsheet.
b) First the bands are sorted by school size and ranked 1-14. The largest school is ranked 1 and the smallest school is ranked 14. The school size rank is multiplied by .67.
c) Then the bands are sorted by band size and ranked 1-14. The largest band is ranked 1 and the smallest band is ranked 14. If two bands are the same size, they both get the same rank and the next number is skipped. The band size rank is multiplied by .33.
d) The resulting school size score and band size score are added to get a total rank score.

Some examples of the calculation:

BAND A: School Size Rank 1 x .67 = 0.67 PLUS Band Size Rank 3 x .33 = 0.99 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 1.66
BAND B: School Size Rank 2 x .67 = 1.34 PLUS Band Size Rank 8 x .33 = 2.64 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 3.98
BAND C: School Size Rank 3 x .67 = 2.01 PLUS Band Size Rank 2 x .33 = 0.66 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 2.67
BAND D: School Size Rank 4 x .67 = 2.68 PLUS Band Size Rank 4 x .33 = 1.32 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 4.00
ETCETERA
BAND M: School Size Rank 13 x .67 = 8.71 PLUS Band Size Rank 7 x .33 = 2.31 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 11.02
BAND N: School Size Rank 14 x .67 = 9.38 PLUS Band Size Rank 12 x .33 = 3.96 EQUALS Total Size Rank of 13.34

e) Finally, the bands are sorted by the total rank score. Gaps in the rank score will determine the dividing lines between each class, with a goal to have an approximately equal number of bands in each class.

2009 is a transition year
The Tri-State Judges Association seeks feedback from directors and parade committees regarding the success of the new system during the 2009 season.

During this transition year the Vikingland Band Festival will make special efforts to ensure that two Class Champion bands who have a chance to retire a flag are not placed in the same class.