The Western Band Association is a nonprofit organization that promotes high school music education in California, Arizona and Nevada. Specifically, the WBA organizes many marching band competitions for high school students. Its championships event is considered to be the second-largest single marching contest in the country. In addition to marching band events, WBA also organizes concert band festivals, symposia, and musical and leadership clinics. In 2008, over 12,000 students in 133 bands performed in WBA events in multiple competitions hosted throughout the state.
History
The Western Band Association was started in January 1979 by marching band directors from five Northern and Central California high schools: Mike Rubino, Ramiro Barrera, Dan Smith, Gary Runsten and Mel Stratton. In 1984, Gary Gilroy coined the name "WSMBC" Western StatesMarching Band Conference, which would later be shortened to WBA by Ramiro Barrera in 2002. The first WSMBC Championship was held in conjunction with the 1984 Music Bowl Prelims at James Logan High School. In 1995, John Hannan helped expand the organization's efforts to include Southern California bands as well. In recent years, bands have also competed under the "WBA" banner from nearby states, including Washington, Oregon, and Nevada. The scoring system also grew to become a two-tiered criteria based curriculum designed for bands of various size memberships, assuring that the small band would have the same opportunity as the large band to achieve a high score measuring their unique orchestration and design options. In 2006, the competition schedule has grown to offer consecutive contests in each of the three Regions helping to alleviate the costs of travel for the bands. In 2012, James Logan High School and Ayala High School tied for first place at the WBA Championships, with both scoring 93.40. However, the tie was broken based on Ayala's General Effect score. The tiebreaker settled Ayala as the WBA Champions.
Scoring system
Each individual judge is assigned to a specific caption. General Effect and Music are each worth 30% of the total score, Visual is worth 20%, and Auxiliary and Percussion are each worth 10%. Awards are released by division. The band with the highest award points for each caption per division is awarded a caption award, while the band with the most overall points in each division is awarded first place-prize. The band with most points in A/AA/AAA combined classes and AAAA/AAAAA combined classes are awarded a "sweepstakes award", with that band removed from the rankings of their class; the next band in placement in that class is moved to "first place" and so on. Each competition will have two Sweepstakes winners, one each for A/AA/AAA and AAAA/AAAAA.
The WBA organizes a marching band circuit with competitions held throughout October and November leading up to the circuit championship competition. The circuit currently has five divisions:
Class A: Bands with up to 60 members
Class AA: Bands with up to 80 members
Class AAA: Bands with up to 100 members
Class AAAA: Bands with up to 140 members
Class AAAAA: Bands with more than 140 members
*Prior to 2004, there were only four divisions. The original Class AA was expanded to two classes, now AA and AAA. AAA and AAAA became the current AAAA and AAAAA classes. Prior to this, WBA had A-60, A-90, AA, and AAA as the classifications.
Class champions at the WBA Championships are determined at the conclusion of preliminary competition at championships. After prelims, the bands then move on to one of two finals competitions: the A/AA/AAA Championship and the AAAA/AAAAA Championship. The top three bands from each division move on to their respective championship and the remaining field is filled by the next highest scoring bands. The Finals field is composed of:
The top 3 bands from each of Class A, AA, and AAA, then the next highest 6 bands from those 3 classifications combined for a total of 15 bands in finals.
The top three bands from each of Class AAAA and AAAAA, then the next highest 9 bands from those 2 classifications combined for a total of 15 bands in finals.
Past champions
Below is an incomplete list of past class champions and sweepstakes winners:
