Wednesday, December 16, 2009

Let me take a moment to gripe....

Anyone go to the band concerts last night at the High School?

Our tiny little town has three band directors that share responsibility between the 6th grade, 7th and 8th bands, and high school bands.

Great band direction and great sounding music.

The gripe? Oh yea, well let me get to that...how about we shove 7 grades worth of bands into one small auditorium, invite their families to come watch and also let this be the first time that the 6th graders have performed...and also even played together.

Not. Enough. Room.

So here's what happened, our little family got there at 5:30 for the potato fundraiser dinner (which was yummy, I didn't have to cook, and there were no dishes involved). The kids were to be in the band hall by 6:30 pm for warm up. The concert was to start at 7:00 pm. The auditorium wasn't opened up until almost 7:00 pm only to be met by a very packed hallway waiting to get inside. By the time we filtered inside the auditorium, there weren't any seats left. The only seats available were brave souls saving seats....and when I say brave souls...I mean near riot from the many many people left standing.

It was like Titanic.....only different.

I kid not....there were people standing all along the sides of the auditorium and packed in the back. I had no idea the massive high school that sits on top of a hill in Decatur had an auditorium so small.

At one point the band director moved the high school students who were seated in the first several rows to ... possibly back to the band hall just to allow more people in. Even at that point, people were still left standing outside in the hall.

As each band played the seated crowd lightened up a bit and improved the situation, but even as the last band played there were still people standing along the back wall to hear their child play. I found out afterwards that the 6th graders were given slips granting a free "100" if they stayed throughout the entire program.

Could we not have done this at the Multi Purpose Building?

This wasn't an attempt to get Decatur to spring more money for expansions at the almost brand new high school, was it?

Nonetheless, I did get to hear my daughter's band play and loved it. My favorite part was seeing her extremely excited once it was over. I enjoyed knowing she enjoyed performing.

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