At the Summer Symposium Director’s Academy, Jarrett Lipman and Kevin Ford explored different ways to design a marching show that will captivate audiences, impress judges, and engage students. These 6 tips will help anyone involved in designing a marching show create a show that entertains and inspires.
Want to experience sessions like this in person? Register for the 2024 Summer Symposium’s Director’s Academy here.
Set Clear Goals
An important first step in designing an effective show is to clearly determine and define your goals for the show. Do you just want to entertain your audience? Do you want to challenge your students musically? Do you want to make it to finals at Grand Nationals? Setting clear goals and aligning design choices to these goals will lead to a successful show.
Have a Collaborative Design Process
Emphasize collaboration in your show’s design process. As the director, you should be an integral part of the entire process and should hire passionate individuals who are invested in the student’s success. All members of the team should be aware of the goals you set for the show and team members should check-in and communicate regularly.
Another aspect of the collaborative process involves communicating a clear timeline. Establishing a clear timeline for the design process ensures that each stage of the show’s development is addressed and everyone’s input is received.
Constantly Refine
The show is a work in progress throughout the whole season – be open to adjusting the music, drill, and other aspects of the show to improve the performance and suit the student’s needs.
Keep Students at the Forefront
Understand the criteria on adjudication sheets and use these criteria to your advantage. If you keep these criteria top-of-mind at each step of the design process, adjudicators will recognize these efforts. Adjudicators will also be impressed by demonstration of creativity, coordination, appropriate range of expressions, time management, continuity, and contribution to enrichment.
Connect with Adjudicators
Understand the criteria on adjudication sheets and use these criteria to your advantage. If you keep these criteria top-of-mind at each step of the design process, adjudicators will recognize these efforts. Adjudicators will also be impressed by demonstration of creativity, coordination, appropriate range of expressions, time management, continuity, and contribution to enrichment.
Understand Your Audience
Identify key stakeholders involved in the show and how they’ll be engaged. Consider who will be in the audience: parents, students, alumni, football audiences, competition audiences, alumni, administrators, and adjudicators. If a majority of your shows will occur in front of a football audience this season, a show that heavily incorporates classical music may be less engaging than a show that incorporates well-known tunes. Alternatively, if you have a competition-heavy schedule, incorporating more musically intricate passages may be more impressive to competition audiences and adjudicators.
