Fiesta Bowl Going All Out For Their Bands

It’s been a weird few weeks for college band fans. 

Monday before Thanksgiving we broke the news of the ACC’s decision to bench their bands at the ACC Championship Game. 24 hours later they reversed their decision. Then a week later we learned that the Pac-12 Conference decided to bench their bands for pregame of their Championship Game in a surprise move.

Now bands are gearing up for bowl games and while not all bowl games are very friendly towards bands (looking at you Orange Bowl), there are many that take care of the bands better than the others.

The Rose Bowl is a shining example of that as bands will play at Disneyland, march in the Rose Parade and then be able to perform at pregame and halftime of the game with a good portion of each show broadcast on national television. Other friendly bowl games for bands are the Outback Bowl, Holiday Bowl and Belk Bowl. We are perfectly happy with bowl games inviting high school bands to perform in large mass bands at halftime with the college bands. The more marchers we get on those fields the better!

However, one bowl is stepping up their game in a big way this year.

Each year the Fiesta Bowl features some of the best college bands. In the past few years they have had the Ohio State Marching Band, Clemson Tiger Band, the Band of the Fighting Irish from Notre Dame and more. This year they have the Penn State Blue Band from the B1G and from the Pac-12 the Washington Husky Marching Band. 

The bands will participate in the Fiesta Bowl parade the morning of the game like the Rose Parade. The parade features around 15 bands including both college bands. It’s a special experience for everyone involved, but it’s at the game is where the Fiesta Bowl is setting itself apart from the rest.

During pregame The Fiesta Bowl will give each band five and a half minutes for a performance, pretty standard bowl time allotment. However, there is also discussion this year of having both bands come together for a joint National Anthem which would be one of the only joint National Anthems at a bowl game. Having seen the spectacle that is a giant 700+ person joint anthem in the conference championship games, the bowl organizers are currently in discussions with both bands to try and make this happen. Then at halftime each band will get 7 minutes to perform their own show. Once both bands are finished they will combine together to perform in honor of the game’s sponsor PlayStation. Instead of PlayStation doing something silly like Dr. Pepper has college kids throw footballs into cans, they have decided to use the bands to help promote themselves. The bands will combine to play the theme song to PlayStation’s hit game “God of War”.

That means that during the 20 minutes of halftime at this year’s Fiesta Bowl, nearly 17 minutes will be dedicated to the marching bands. 

It is wonderful to see this type of example being set by one of the top bowl games in the country and we thank PlayStation for it’s decision to utilize the marching bands to maximize their promotional interests during halftime. 

Why more game sponsors don’t have the bands create formations for them on the field will always blow our minds. It’s an easy and eye popping way to market themselves at the game plus it lends itself to being captured by fans that will then share that picture with their friends on social media. It’s not rocket science. College marching bands are promotional machines. We’re glad to see that Playstation has figured this out and instead of limiting the band’s halftime shows, they are maximizing them and accomplishing their promotional goals as well.

Well done Fiesta Bowl and PlayStation. Well done.