Marching Bands Fill Yakima County Stadium Saturday

The Harvest Marching Band Festival is set for Saturday in Yakima at Yakima County Stadium, and more than 5,000 spectators are expected to come out to see 2,500 musicians from high school marching bands from Washington and Idaho.

Festival director Stephanie Kinney, a career guidance specialist at Eisenhower High School, says the event is open to the community.

"We've all seen the Ohio State Marching band with their precision marching and routines," Kinney says. "Well, this is the high school version."

Each band will perform a 10-minute show including wind and percussion musicians, flag teams, rifle squads and dance teams. The top 12 bands will advance to the finals. Preliminary competition will take place from 11 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. with the finals following. Eisenhower and A.C. Davis High schools perform in exhibition as the hosts of the festival at the close of finals at 7:45 pm.

The event is being held at the Yakima County stadium for the first time since Zaepfel Stadium is still under construction.