Find Your Rhythm: An Interview with Al Davis, Organizer of World Series of Marching Bands

Charlotte, NC – Al Davis is the visionary for and the director of operations of Halftime is Game Time and an affiliate of ESPN Charlotte. Halftime is Game Time is hosting the inaugural 2018 World Series of Marching Bands in Charlotte, NC from Thursday November 8th to Sunday November 11th. The World Series of Marching Bands has been in the works since January of this year.

What’s the purpose of hosting the World Series of Marching Bands Parade? 

Well, it’s not just a parade but a whole weekend of events. It’s the World Series of Marching Bands event, Halftime is Game Time, a national tour that we do. We tour 15 to 25 cities per year and we put on battle of the bands in different cities. What we’re doing is we’re looking for the best bands in the world to all come to the World Series of Marching Bands. It’s kind of like the Super Bowl for marching bands. The purpose behind what we do is that we want to build the culture up with marching bands again. We want to expose more of the youth back to things like marching band and music as a whole. I personally want them to know that participating in a marching band provides you with life skills like discipline, teamwork, accountability, respect, a lot of things that they’re not teaching in the homes anymore.

You learn those types of things from being in a marching band. We want to encourage more and more youth to actually get into a marching band and participate. Also to let them know ‘Hey you can actually get a scholarship to actually go to college from participating in a marching band.’”  So that’s the purpose behind what we do for the World Series of Marching Bands. We are partnering with Spectacular Magazine to sponsor the Parade.

How long have you been hosting this event? 

We’ve been hosting the Halftime is Game Time events for about 3 years. This is actually the first year for the World Series of Marching Bands.

How did you come up with the idea? Was it just you or a whole team of people? 

Well it pretty much was me. I’ve always loved the band, ever since I was old enough to walk. I’ve been playing drums and I’ve always loved music and being in the band. I’ve actually been in the band myself since 4th grade. I’ve participated in band all through middle school, all through high school and 4 years in college as well at Johnson C. Smith University. I saw that it was a need for an event like what we have because the band culture, not only in the North Carolina area, but all across the globe, the culture is going down. Kids weren’t as interested in being in the band again. I felt like an event like my event, Halftime is Game Time and World Series of Marching Bands, is something that’s needed to uplift the marching band culture again.

You said that you went to Johnson C. Smith, so do you have an particular ties to trying to have this event in Charlotte? 

Well I’m actually affiliated with ESPN Charlotte. What we did was we had a 22-city tour last year and what we did is we voted on all of the cities from the tour. The city that gets the most is actually the city that we brought to the World Series.  So Charlotte was the city that got the most votes. So that’s why Charlotte was chosen to be the host city for the 2018 World Series of Marching Bands.

I know that you said that you travel to other cities for preliminary events, so are these cities all across the United States? 

Yes. Last year we went as far up as Baltimore, D.C., Detroit, Tennessee, New Orleans, places like that. We actually want to branch out with our next season’s national tour. We actually want to take it out to the  west coast. So we would actually like to take it down to Mississippi, Houston, Florida to expose those cities with our next tour.

Are there anyone outside of your sponsors and Halftime is Game Time that is helping out with the event?  

Not really. We do have the support of the city. They are helping us out, the city of Charlotte, but for the most part, we pretty much handle everything ourselves.

What are some of the things that you personally or your other staff members do behind the scene that other people may not see? 

Oh man it’s a lot. Actually when we visit these cities, we actually just don’t have battle of the bands. We’re actually in the city a whole week before the battle of the bands. We give free motivational assemblies at different schools in the cities that we’re in. We go and motivate the kids. Let them know that they can be anything they put their minds to no matter what.  If they want to be a doctor, a lawyer, a teacher, whatever it is, we let them know. I actually created a concept. I created 4-steps to actually get to your goals. We call it “Find Your Rhythm” and it’s a concept that teaches the kids how to actually achieve being whatever it is that they want to be. That’s one of the messages that we do while we’re in these cities. A lot of people don’t know those type of things. We do all of those shows for free. It’s about a 45-minute show. We actually perform with them. We engage with them. We actually have a good time with them, but it’s also informative. So that’s some of the things that we do. I also talk with a lot of the band directors. I find out what’s going on with them. What are some of the things they need to assist them in making a smooth transition. Those are some of the things we do that a lot of people don’t actually see.

Have you seen any common themes emerge about things on the high school level of band that affects students’ participation in band? 

Well for the most part, it’s little to no funding at the high school level for marching band. That is pretty much the common issue that a lot of them let me know they’re having. So it is the fees associated with being in a marching band. A lot of the parents or the kids just don’t have the capacity to pay. So that’s why we have a steady decline of the students in marching band right now.  The funds are not there. The next one is basically kids are just not interested anymore. They don’t know that you can have fun with it. They just don’t know and those are pretty much the two top issues. They’re just oblivious to what it’s all about.

Do you do anything with funding for the kids’ instruments through these events? 

What we do everywhere that we go, every event that we do, we donate half of all of the ticket sales back to the participating band programs. That’s kind of our way of trying to help them. It does change some things but it’s a lot more that they actually need. My goal is to actually  raise a lot more funds so that we can really cause a bigger impact in these high schools. Instead of us giving 10 to 15 thousand dollars in each city, I would like to give a $100,000 to them. That would cause a deeper impact. We also try to give at least one scholarship to one of the participating students from one of the bands. I would like for that number to increase as well.

What is your game plan to getting more participation and raising more funds, so you can give back to this much needed cause? 

Well events like the World Series, we want to get more corporate and businesses involved in what we do. The event that we do is really a great event. so we really need businesses and corporations to jump on board and start to donate and support because at the end of the day the more students that participate in marching band, the better the society will be. You don’t have kids just out here on the streets, you don’t have kids out here and all they’re doing is playing video games, Fortnite and Grand Theft Auto. Those games are really violent. It’s really teaching these kids how to be criminals out here. Things like that, that’s my goals.

I was just looking at some of the bands that will be coming to the World Series of Marching Bands and I see some bands from just D.C., Maryland, South Carolina, even one from Michigan, so how do these bands get here? 

For the most part they would actually do fundraisers to raise the funds to get here.  Eventually what I would like to happen is that we can actually fund them to actually get here as an award. But right now the funding is not that way. We do put fundraising in place for them to help them out and they also have their own fundraisers. That’s pretty much how they’re funded to get here. We do partner with  different hotels to get them discounts to so they don’t have to pay the full rates and things like that. We kind of help them out when they get here to feed all of the bands at the events and things like that as well.

Do you have a general idea of what the itinerary will be like or the World Series of Marching Bands? 

I do. Thursday night November 8th we have a Welcome to Charlotte event. We’re going to have a lot of people coming into town. This will be a networking event on Thursday. Friday kicks off the events for the middle school and high school step show. It’s called “Stomp-A-Rama 2018.” We have different groups from all around for that. Saturday morning, we start with the parade at 9am.  After the parade, at 12 noon, we are going to the battle of the bands competition. That’s going to include all of the bands that’s going to be here participating. Then once we’re done with that at seven o’clock, we will move to the gym where we’re going to have an indoor band battle. We will have a drumline competition and a dance competition and it’s just a fun event. The bands get to let loose and play against each other. It’s a really fun event. Then on Sunday we will have the finals. We’ll have four bands that will make it to the finals for the World Series and then we will have a college battle of the bands after that. It’s a real big festive weekend. We have a fan fest going on with the radio station Block Party. It’s gonna be a lot of energy. It’s gonna be a lot of fun.

Are all of the events this weekend gonna be held at Johnson C. Smith?   

Yes. Everything is at Johnson C. Smith, the whole weekend.

What are some of the college bands that are gonna be showing up to perform? 

We’re gonna have North Carolina A&T, South Carolina State, North Carolina Central, Winston-Salem, Benedict and of course Johnson C. Smith will be there as well.

Why do you do this and what do you get out of doing this? 

Well like I said, the purpose of this is to basically make more kids aware of being in a marching band.  I do this because I love music and I love the band as well. I want the kids to see what can actually happen from being in a marching band and things like that. I like the events as well. They’re exciting and they give the kids something to look forward to. In the world that we live in, there is not a lot of positive things. So things like this is something that you can look forward to every year. To see the kids actually showcase what they’ve work so hard for. That’s what brings me joy!

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