With the series of regional championship contests at an end and with the bubbles of qualification champagne replaced with the headache of fundraising to get to York and London, Malcolm Wood looks at five issues for debate.
Volunteer conscription
It’s not the total of 480 bands who performed at the Regional Championships this year that should be the figure to worry about. It’s the number of ever-diminishing, hardworking, age-defying volunteers, without whom the Regional Contests wouldn’t take place.
A few years ago the former North West Regional Secretary Peter Bates remarked that if people don’t come forward soon then players would be “putting out the chairs on stage for themselves”.
We are not quite there yet – but the day is coming. Polite requests in all regions have repeatedly fallen on fairly deaf ears. Now it is perhaps time to consider making it a requirement to compete.
Some inventive thinking could solve the problem – such as having a 1-year conscription draft.
Six months before the next regional event, place all the bands in a hat and draw up to 10 names out (depending on the numerical size of the region). Those chosen must provide at least one person from their organisation to help in any way they can for their regional championship weekend.
Appropriate checks can be made in advance for safeguarding purposes. In return the band represented will get a discount off their entry fee for that year.
The following year 10 new names are drawn, whilst those who wish to continue to help can also be welcomed once more.
10 bands to provide 1 person each to help for 1 weekend a year at their regional championship event. If we can’t do that to put the chairs out at least then don’t be surprised if it will soon be standing room only on contest day.
Free the finances
Ever wonder why the regional championships still persist in awarding prize money of £200, £150 and £100 to podium finishing bands?
It is understood that standardisation across all regional events for 2026 was agreed at the Regional Forum Meeting in November, as the feeling was that not all regions could afford increases from existing funds.
It seems a strange decision. Financially it no longer makes sense to restrict Regional Committees in their efforts to gain sponsorship money than can directly support the bands who are successful at their contest – or in a wider context, to help with ever increasing running costs.
What difference does it make if the prizes are sponsored by a benefactor, car dealership, chip shop, or nail bar for that matter, if it means more meaningful financial help can be given towards hotel and travel costs for those heading to York Barbican or the Royal Albert Hall in the years to come.
If we are that attractive as a product to businesses, the money will come in. If not, then we need to start thinking about what we must do to change that.
Open up the Fourth Section
It’s an old chestnut and there are considerations to take into account given the number of entries in some sections in certain regions. But, if we are to really encourage bands at the foundation Fourth Section level to take part, the time has come to give them a better musical incentive to do so.
The selection of ‘Indian Summer’ this year was a qualified success (resulting in an extra 8 competing bands), whilst the choices made by the Kapitol Music Panel in recent years have been widely welcomed by performers and audiences alike (‘I, Daedalus’; ‘Argos’; ‘Neverland’ etc).
So why not embrace the popularity further, with the Panel offering an own-choice selection of works that can be performed – ones that not only offer a variety of styles, but can accommodate different sizes of ensemble.
In fact open the Fourth Section up completely - make it all transparent and inclusive – the music, the adjudication, the participation rules etc. Make it welcoming and aspirational. Make it fun, and above all else, make it relevant to 2027 not 1947.
Then, in future we can perhaps start to look at opening things up for the other sections too.
Player doping
This isn’t about player borrowing. The rules that have been brought in for Sections 1-4 have seen as being overwhelmingly positive and have been embraced in the correct spirit by competing bands.
However, when it comes to the top section in particular, player borrowing has rapidly turned into player doping. Even its exact legal meaning in the registration rules is being challenged.
Bands flying in players from abroad to cover principal seats is nothing new, but it has now become endemic – a way of circumventing the true spirit of the rules, and the ethos of the events themselves.
It may well give a short-term boost to the contesting lifeblood of bands, but it comes at a cost – any positive result on the day disguising the long-term damage to the health of the band that believes to retain its perceived elite level status it has no other choice than to do it.
Do bands really care about that though, if it means they retain their ‘Championship Section’ status for another year at least?
Perhaps not – but it is fast making a mockery of the true competitive ethos of the event.
Adjudication
There has been a great deal of debate about the quality of adjudication at the Regional Championships this year.
Much of it on social media is underpinned by whether or not a band has gained a good result or not, yet elsewhere there are those who are asking relevant questions.
Two simple questions will always remain when appointing adjudicators at competitions. Do they have the requisite level of musical skill, insight and experience to make their decisions – and do we trust them to do so with unquestionable impartiality?
If both questions are answered in the affirmative, then there is no problem. If not, then we need to get people who are.
