Another great Illinois marching band season has come and gone.  Bands across the state exceeded expectations all year.   Morton and Lincoln-Way East made Grand National Semifinals for the first time ever, and Morton placed in their class.  Marian Catholic made Grand National finals for the 27th consecutive year, and picked up their 12th ISU title and 16th National Class champion at Grand Nationals in the process.  Lake Park makes semifinals, and Illinois has their most bands competing in semifinals since 2000.

Downers Grove South made ISU finals for the first time in a generation, Huntley turned eyes across the Chicagoland area all season with their massive improvement over last year.  Plainfield North turns their first performance at ISU into a finalist spot.  Lincoln-Way West continues to impress in just their second year, by making ISU finals, narrowly losing to Morton.  LWW also placed 3rd in their class at the Louisville BOA regional.  Their sister school in Lincoln-Way North held their own all season, putting up impressive performances and placements across the Midwest this season.

A few more accolades from this season: O’Fallon Township winning their first competition in 2 years and continuing to impress on the national level, Rock Island taking 3rd in class 3A at ISU, United Township making ISU finals for the first time since 2007, and bands such as Lockport and Edwardsville dipping their toes into the national competition scene by competing at BOA events for the first time ever.

A big congratulations and thank you to all the students, parents, staff, and directors,  involved with Illinois marching bands for making this a memorable season.

On to some site statistics for the season:

• 872,565 site hits.  This is a 25,937 hit increase over last season.
• Biggest traffic day of the year:  43,806 hits (the day after ISU)  This is a 8,185 hit increase over last season’s biggest traffic day, which was the day after ISU 2009.
• The traffic on our festivals page was up 43% this season.
• The traffic on our scores page was up 57% this season.

A heartfelt thank you goes out to all who continue to use the site.

What’s going on in 2011?

We’re going to continue to provide up-to-date scores, competition information, band information, and all of that.  We’re going to try a few new things next year that you will want to be around for.  Band features are definitely going to be back in 2011, and we’ll try to do new features as well.  If you have any suggestions, please email Mark or Dan.

Some cosmetic modifications to the site will be made as well.  In addition, we’re strongly considering updating the forum software to vBulletin or Invision Power Boards if it is possible, so we can have more flexibility within the site design.

We will be looking for a few additional staff members to help us out.  We’ll have more information about this in the months to come.

We’re also looking for another sponsor  or two for the site.  Please contact Dan at balash@ilmarching.com for more information on how to become a sponsor.

If anyone has any ideas on how to update or improve the site, email us.  We’re always looking for ideas as we begin our 8th full season of providing marching band coverage in 2011.

-The Illinois Marching Online Staff