Bands of America and Prosper ISD will host the first ever BOA North Texas Regional at Children’s Health Stadium. Twenty-five bands throughout North Texas, Oklahoma and Missouri will be competing at the contest.

Tickets can be purchased online. Children ages 0-12 have free admission.

Prices are listed below

Adult Preliminary General Admission- $25.00
Adult Finals General Admission- $25.00
Adult Day Pass General Admission- $40.00
Student (11-18 or College Student) Preliminary General Admission- $22.00
Student Finals General Admission- $22.00
Student Day Pass General Admission- $37.00
Senior Preliminary General Admission- $22.00
Senior Finals General Admission- $22.00

Tickets purchased at the door will be more expensive than those purchased online. There is also no charge for parking.

Throughout the day at Children’s Health Stadium, all spectators and students must follow Prosper ISD’s Clear Bag policy that is normally implemented at football games.

The BOA Regionals contest is not the first time Prosper ISD held a marching contest. Last school year, the district held both the University Interscholastic League Region 24 Marching Contest, and the 5A Area B Marching Contest.

The main difference between a BOA regional contest and a UIL marching contest is the state circuit versus national circuit of competitions.

There are typically three contests in UIL: Region, Area and State. When a band receives the highest points in a Region marching contest, the band advances to Area and likewise to State. There isn’t much advancement in BOA, so a band won’t necessarily advance from regionals to super regionals.

Bands who compete in BOA don’t need to perform in regionals or super regionals to get to Grand Nationals, the last contest in BOA.

According to Fine Arts Director John Alstrin, having a BOA regional contest would help both the Rock Hill Band Booster Club and the community itself. With this contest, Prosper will come out on the map.

“We hope that [BOA] really enjoys our stadium and wants to come back because we would like to be part of their regular lineup for shows,” Alstrin said.

BOA Presence in DFW

The original BOA contest that covered the Dallas Fort-Worth Area lasted 20 years. According to Jeremy Earnhart, CEO of Music for All, BOA DFW was held in three places throughout the 20 years: University of Texas at Arlington, Southlake Carroll Dragon Stadium and HEB Pennington Field, in which the Rock Hill Band received 11th at the 2022 BOA DFW marching contest.

Music for All is a nonprofit music education program that prioritizes students across America having access and opportunity to do music in their scholastic environment

“Our mission is to create, provide and expand positively life changing experiences through Music for All,” Earnhart said.

The reason for adding Super Regionals, a second BOA regional, was the demand in bands wanting to compete at BOA DFW.

“We’re able to fill up to 32 spots in a day and our registrations will be over 32,” Earnhart said. “That was pretty consistent over the last two seasons.”

Children’s Health Stadium was chosen by a couple of factors. Enough seating for people to watch bands, amplified parking for both the spectators and competing bands, and the location itself gave Earnhart and his team the final decision for Prosper and Children’s Health Stadium to be able to host the inaugural contest of BOA North Texas.

Schedule

Officially as of Oct. 13, there are 25 bands that are competing.

The first band is from Garland, Texas and performs at 8 a.m. Rock Hill Marching Band performs at 10 a.m. The final band will perform at 4 p.m. while the University of Texas Maverick Marching Band will be the exhibition band for the contest.

After preliminaries finish, at 4:15 p.m. the competing drum majors for each band will return back to the field for drum major retreat. At this time, the preliminary awards will be announced and given out.

Twelve bands will be named finalists and will advance to finals later in the night. The first finalist band will perform at 7:30 p.m. and the last will perform at 10:30 p.m.

Following after will be the finals award ceremony with an olympic retreat. All members of the finalist bands will come onto the field for the ceremony.

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