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The Marching Ironmen will be hosting their second annual Band Festival at Alumni Stadium on Saturday September the 20th at 1 pm. The marching band from Kent State will perform along with area high school bands. Some of the bands will also march in the Grand Finale Apple Festival Parade that night. Tickets are $ 5.00 pre-sale and $7.00 at the stadium. Several businesses are selling pre- sale tickets as well as at the Band Boosters booth at the festival. If you like watching and listening to some great maching bands, this is the place to be.

Is this an OMEA Event or is it simply a festival for show bands?

It is just a festival, the only OMEA events this weekend in southern Ohio will be at Coal Grove at 11 AM and at Rock Hill at 4 PM.

These festivals aren't worth the time. The better bands compete at OMEA competitions.

The Band Show was fantastic. Got to see some great bands that we usually miss out on because we don't play their teams in football. I'd rather watch a good band show than a competition any day. It's more relaxed, the kids have fun,the fans can dance, cheer, and sing along with the music. Competitions are important, but quite frankly, I've dozed off during some competition bands , because I personally find it boring. I'm old and set in my ways, so give me a good band show, half time football show, or parade, any day. Also along with some outstanding high school bands, Kent State was awesome. Thank you to The Marching Ironmen for a wonderful afternoon at Alumni Stadium.

SportFan2013 wrote:These festivals aren't worth the time. The better bands compete at OMEA competitions.

Just because you compete, doesn't make you better.............UNLESS ........... you take first place every single time. :122245 :122245 :122245

You will never be able to show me a show band that can march out onto the field like a competition band and do 6 different marching styles like South Point, Rock Hill, Coal Grove, or Spring Valley can do in just 3 songs, all the while keeping good tone quality, and marching in step.

The reason competition bands generally don't sound as good is because they are not judged in the captions of "Standing Around and Dancing", "Crowd Appeal", and "Blasting the Brass to Gross".

You missed my point. It's like at Thanksgiving dinner. Some people like the white meat snd some people like the dark meat of the turkey. It's not which is BETTER , but which you prefer . Like the Turkey, NEITHER type of band is Better, just different styles and what you prefer.