Travel/Festivals

Teacher Prep: Travel Planning 101

During my first several years of teaching, I would jump from my bed in the middle of the night and write down another item on my "to-do" list. My mind would work overtime, trying to distinguish between what needed to be focused on and what would take care of itself. There was that nagging feeling that I was always forgetting something. It did not take long for that to happen.

We arrived at our first marching festival of the year during my first year of teaching. A freshman trombone player strolled up to me and asked, "Mr. Matzat, did you load my trombone?" Later on that same trip, we realized that our quint player left his drum carrier at home.

On our next trip, the buses became separated on the highway and the second bus driver (who had no directions, map or communication with the lead bus) was lost for hours and nearly missed the performance altogether. One year, I forgot to bring blank judges' tapes for our state concert band festival.

Festivals and Travel

Fundraising. Booking flights, buses, hotel accommodations. Recruiting chaperones. Organizing the itinerary. Answering multitudinous questions from students, parents and administrators. As if music directors don’t already have enough to worry about when planning trips for their ensembles, recent world events have added more apprehension to the equation.

Concerns about national security, the war in Iraq, SARS and the weakened economy have combined to create a much more cautious student travel climate in 2003, according to travel and festival companies that serve the school band and orchestra market. In recent months, a significant percentage of band and orchestra trips have been cancelled, re-routed to different destinations or postponed until 2004. But, despite existing concerns, festival and travel companies continue to see a growing interest in student travel and attendance at band and orchestra festivals.