Great Marching Band Halftime Show? There’s an App for That
It’s fall, and that means FOOTBALL. And at Ohio State University (OSU), where Buckeye fans stay glued to their seats at halftime, the OSU Marching Band—“The Best Damn Band in the Land”—stepped it up big time this year thanks to new technology suggested by two students.
Time is critical for a marching band. For the OSU Marching Band, there’s a new show to learn every week within a tight timeframe—two hours every day, Monday through Friday—to put on the show that you see on Saturday afternoon.
This year Ryan Barta and Charlie King, two OSU Marching Band students, came up with the idea to implement iPads to reduce the massive amount of paper used each week to diagram Saturday’s on-field performance and improve efficiency in the logistics of the band's day-to-day operations and performances.
How? “You see everything unfold right in front of you, which is something that we’ve never ever been able to see,” the students say. “It helps us put out better shows on Saturday and improve the way we do things on and off the field.”
The Today Show even went to Columbus to film a behind-the-scene account of the OSU Marching Band’s amazing formations.
Even The Washington Post featured this Midwest marching band. The Washington Post Innovations blog details how the move to a digital platform “revolutionized halftime shows” by using iPads along with the Drillbook Next app to help marchers learn their positions.
Instead of looking at printouts or PDFs on their iPads of formations while practicing, band members can watch the animation in motion. The app can be paused at any moment in the sequence to verify that all marchers are at their proper coordinates. Band instructors first design performances on software called Pyware, and then load the files onto the iPads using Drillbook Next.
The resulting performances have made the OSU Marching Band a YouTube sensation. So far, their October 26, 2013, extraordinary Hollywood Blockbusters halftime show has ratcheted up more than 11 million views on YouTube.
For some great entertainment (even if you’re not a Buckeye fan), here's the OSU Marching Band performing "Hollywood Blockbusters" during halftime of the OSU vs. Penn State football game:
