Hoover Invitational Marching Festival makes a comeback for 2021 season

The Hoover Invitational Marching Festival returns to Hoover Metropolitan Stadium on Oct. 23 after a hiatus last year due to COVID-19.

The marching band festival is organized by the Hoover High School band program and boosters and is open to bands of any size. Twenty bands from across the Southeast have registered to participate.

Hoover High School’s 180-member competition marching band also will perform an exhibition at the festival, Band Director Ryan Fitchpatrick said.

Admission to the festival costs $10 for adults and children. Children ages 5 and younger get in free. Proceeds are used to support the band program at Hoover High. Gates open at 12:30 p.m.

Judges for the band performances include: Harry McAfee, retired director from Hoover High; Greg Snyder, Nashville City Schools; Hal Murphy, Etowah County Board of Education; Ken Bodiford, Jacksonville State University; and Jamar Dumas, Daphne High School.

Specialty judges include: Doug Rosner, Auburn University (percussion); Adrian Fitchpatrick, Hoover High (color guard); Charity Jones, Vestavia Hills High School (danceline/majorettes); Lauren Bearden, Homewood High School (drum majors).

Last year, instead of having its own competition, Hoover joined with five other band programs from the “over-the-mountain” community to hold a free exhibition show at the Hoover Met.

That allowed the band students from those schools to have a competition-like experience but with greater controls on crowd size to allow for more social distancing, Fitchpatrick said. Some local university music directors provided feedback for the bands on their performances.

The Hoover High band boosters were able to raise about $3,000 to $4,000 from concessions from that event, but that was not the primary reason for having it, Fitchpatrick said. The money raised helped offset about $14,000 of unbudgeted expenses related to COVID-19 mitigation for the Hoover High band, he said.

For more information about this year’s Hoover Invitational Marching Festival, go to hooverband.com.