Flucos Off to a Great Marching Season

The Marching Flucos placed third in the AAA class and sixth overall in their competition on Sept. 23 at Stuarts Draft High School. In addition, percussion earned first place in their category.

“Our show was exciting from start to finish. A lot of things went well that kept the judges and audience interested. For our first competition of the year, this was fantastic!” said band teacher Michael Strickler.

The bands are judged by at least one judge for each category: Music, Visual, and General Effect. Percussion, guard, and occasionally drum major are judged separately and do not affect the total band score. All three categories are combined to give the band an overall score out of 100 points. Bands are then ranked by their score.

Each competition sets class or division size based on the size of the groups; that way, small bands compete against other small bands and large bands compete against other large bands. Generally, A is the smallest, then AA, AAA, and AAAA. If the competition is large enough they might have 5A or 6A to keep the bands in groups of 5-10 per class.

The Flucos received an 84 out of 100 and was one point shy of a Superior rating, which is the highest possible rating. “We’ve never started a season with such a high score before. Usually this is the level that we finish the season with. So I’m super excited for what’s to come,” said Strickler.