All smart show design is simply about focusing on the best you have to offer. If your members are great marchers, you should play a simpler music book and feature dazzling drill moves.  Create excitement with visual virtuosity.  If your strength is a great concert program, then choose music to show off your musicality and back off on drill demand.  I once built an entire seven-minute show around one first-chair All-State trumpet player.  I must have written it correctly because no judge ever noticed that every 90 seconds he was featured with a solo while my very weak low brass section played whole notes.

A strong color guard can carry an entire show with minimal demand for the instrumentalists.  Control focus to create movement and excitement with the color guard while the band drill remains simple and cleanable.  I once managed to spend almost two minutes with the band actually halted while the guard ran all over the field at what seemed like 100 mph.  At about the two-minute mark, one judge finally commented, “It seems like we might need to move the band,” just as the drill finally started to change drill sets.  I felt like a genius!

Play to your Strengths for success!