Kewanee High School will host its first ever band competition at the KHS stadium this weekend. The two-hour event is set to take place on Saturday, Sept. 16 from 7 to 9 pm and will feature five marching bands from Monmouth-Roseville, Canton, Orion, United Township and Rockridge. The KHS Marching Band will give an exhibition performance scheduled for 8:40 pm.

The idea for The Kewanee Marching Band Festival came from Alex Binek, the band director for KHS.

“We’ve been going to these competitions for years and years,” he said, but many of the competitions are over an hour away.

Because the stadium now has new turf and a lighting system, Binek said it was the ideal place to host the event. In addition, many of the smaller, 2A division schools that have to travel from farther away are relegated to performing during the daytime at these competitions, and don’t often get the experience of performing under the stadium lights. All of the invited bands are 2A division schools.

Putting on such an event has required a lot of planning, but Binek said he isn’t in it alone. The Music Boosters, as well as the KHS Athletic Department have assisted him in many of the details.

“I’m not flying solo here,” he said.

Binek said the event is a great opportunity for people in Kewanee and the surrounding area to come out and experience a marching band competition and see what it’s all about.

Nine judges, none of which are from the participating schools, will be on hand to judge the competition and each has a very specific area that they will judge. Three judges will judge the visual aspect of the competition including flag work and choreography. Judges will be on the field and in the press box. Three more judges will listen to the actual musical performance, while other judges look at the color guard, the percussion and the drum majors.

All of those judges’ scores are combined and then averaged to determine ranking. Since Kewanee is hosting the event, their performance will simply be an exhibition, he said. But the judges will provide them with a score so they can look and see how they did.

“Each one of these bands have great shows put together,” said Binek. “It should be a lot of fun.”

The bands will begin their competition performances at 7 pm and the award ceremony will be held at 8:50 pm. There will be a special, surprise light show to end the night. The cost of admission is $5.