About Festival of Bands, USA
The Festival is an exciting day featuring bands from South Dakota, Iowa, Nebraska and Minnesota competing for superior honors in parade and field competition categories.
The event is hosted each year by five local high school bands who also perform in Field Exhibition: Washington, Roosevelt, Bishop O’Gorman, Lincoln, and Jefferson High Schools from Sioux Falls, SD.
Bands compete, according to their enrollment, in 1A, 2A, 3A, 4A Classifications in the Field Competition. Superior trophies and caption certificates including Drumline, Hornline, Guard and Drum Major, are awarded in the Field competition in each classification.
Volunteers Make it Happen.
The Festival of Bands Committee consists of over 30+ volunteer members and spends more than half a year putting together the elements which make Festival of Bands a success. The committee members are supported by over 400 parent volunteers from the Sioux Falls Community who coordinate the day’s event, which typically includes 5,000 students and close to 10,000 spectators who come to cheer on their child and school at the parade and field competitions. The Festival is a testament to their volunteer spirit!
A festival of friends.
The origin of Festival of Bands USA can be traced back to a small group of local band parents who would meet for pizza following marching band competitions at out of town locations.
During one of these sessions, they began discussing the resources available in Sioux Falls and the positive things a local marching festival might provide for musicians from both Sioux Falls and around the region. They decided to explore the concept of a local event.
Bringing an idea to life.
Discussions next expanded to include the Sioux Falls Area Chamber of Commerce, local band directors, and interested public representatives. Now it was working lunches at the Chamber and many hours of effort forming relationships. Finally, on February 8, 1988, Festival of Bands USA was formally incorporated, and that following October, the first Festival of Bands came to Sioux Falls.
In its first year, there were only 13 parade bands and 8 in field competition. The 1988 finals also included hundreds of local junior high band students forming an American flag with red, white, and blue colored cards.
In 1989, the Festival gained a partner when it joined its parade with that of Augustana College’s Viking Days celebration. This parade partnership continued through 2005.
Continuing the tradition today.
While scope has changed over the years, neither intent nor content has moved much away from the design set out in these early formative times for Festival of Bands USA. Its intent is still to give opportunities to the student participants for musical growth through adjudication and association with other quality marching organizations. Its organization is still solidly volunteer-based. And it is parents and friends of music who get together on the first weekend in October to do something significant for their community, the students, and the marching band tradition.