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I posted this somewhere else but the feedback wasnt good so I willl try here. Who has had disaters involving marching band? Im talking about falls, breaking instruments, forgetting drill. One year this guy forgot to bring his clarinet to a compettion! One of the moms had to drive back and get it.

At our last competition which was an a hour away the drummer in the marching band forgot his snare, in the middle of the performance one of the flute's end piece falls off and a clarinet and flute collide, if none of that had happen we would have won since we lost by three points.

I won't go into every story, but I will share my favorite. At one of our tournaments, there was a misunderstanding and our drum major started us before the judges said they were ready. 30 seconds into the show, a voice comes over the mic saying, "Poway, the judges ARE ready." Thankfully, it didn't affect our score much, but the judge seemed really pissed. That turned into a joke later though, as our director would say, "Poway, the judges are ready," 30 seconds into every practice run, or before we started (when it's supposed to be) to make everyone laugh. mrgreen

During one of this years competitions, a colorguard girl passed in between me and a trumpet player like always except she didn't make sure her flag was safe and the trumpet player stepped on it and ripped the entire flag off.

Worth Reading...my first year of marching band there was this one set where EVERY. SINGLE. DAY. of band camp I would go to backstep, lose my balance and fall. I almost won the most likely to trip and fall superlative but strangly I stopped tripping as soon as band camp ended and we had normal practices. O_O But that's nothing compared to the spiral set. Otherwise known as the death set. We had to march..in a spiral...on the 50 so we were flipping every like....5 steps...ish...anyway. now. take the spiral. put it in mud.(we pretty much don't have grass on our field) the tempo's about 140. now. from the spiral to the next set was the worst for me. I had to get from the 30 to the 50 in 16 counts. the problem. I'll try to explain this as graphically as i can. As I'm backstepping, the saxline is following me backwards (I love follow the leader) I was at the end of the line so it was my job to make sure I got out of their way. You're probably wondering why I didn't just take huge steps. here's the problem. The Clarinets had to get around me before I got to the 35. If they got cut off they couldn't get to their set and it ruined the entire rest of the show. I had to go slow enough to not run them over OR cut them off...but fast enough not to trip my entire section and have a domino effect...all the way down the spiral. (though that would have been pretty darn funny to see if we wern't at a competition...xD) Well...anyway...if that's not bad enough, I also had the drumline backing up behind me. And well, you all know what happens if you collide with a drum...(and if you don't...let's just say you'll probably end up in the hospital...) So basically. I had to time my spacing EXACT or lots of people got seriously injured. This was all my first year of marching band. I was a short little 8th grader. Now here comes the disaster. This one day. I was tired and could barely support my weight so I obviously couln't time that well enough. 2 of my best friends were in the clarinet line and I didn't want to injure them so I took it a little slower than normal.The Mellophone in front of me stepped on my foot. I, as a good marcher...kept on going despite the pain. (she was a Sr. I was an 8th grader.) Unfortunately my foot moving under hers caused her to trip. and well. When there's a full body lying on the ground and the other people can't see what's behind them......they tripped....all of them. That beautiful domino effect the ENTIRE sax and horn line....and I just kept on going. It was probably the funniest marching band moment I've ever had. Luckily it was only like our 3rd time practincing that set so our BD didn't eat our heads off....she got pretty mad at the end of the season though when we still couldn't make it look as cool as it was supposed to...people cried...from like...actual physical pain. (pfft...it's marching band what else is new. =/ yet...for some reason coming home at 10pm, missing the first pitch of the world series all for aching calves that torment you all night..and day sometimes....it always pays off. always manges to feel good in the end. I heart marching band. ....and people DARE say it's not a sport. X_X

Well, when I was in 8th grade (and I didn't hear about this until the next monday), we were at a competition, and we were standing there for....a really long time. Anyway, the band was "standing easy" (they weren't at attention or parade rest) and one of the saxophone players and the sousaphone player decided to test how far they could shove the saxophone into the sousaphone. You can probably guess what happens next. Thesaxophone's ligature falls off, into the sousaphone. So then our BD, MR. Walp, is really pissed, but he has to get the ligature out. So they are looking like idiots holding the sousaphone at varois angles and turning it around.....it was pretty funny. I don't remember if they got it out, but I know that even if they did, the sax player didn't march. (The sousaphone player had to march! He was the only one!!)