DANVILLE — Danville will be filled with sound of music as the Viking Invitational Marching Band competition returns Saturday for its 52nd year.
Multiple high school marching bands will take to the field, and the Danville High School Band of Vikings will perform in exhibition at 6:30 pm.
“We always look forward to having the invitational,” Band Director Ryan Krapf said. “It’s one of our biggest events that we host here at DHS.”
The Vikings will take to the field playing “The Gallery of Chaos,” which Krapf says is inspired by ‘horror vacui’ — an art term for filling empty areas with shapes and designs. “Horror Vacui,” by Andrew David Perkins, is also part of the show.
“The show is about the absence of space,” Krapf explained. “Horror vacui is an art term about art that the artist fills every empty void with some sort of shape or some sort of design to fill it, so there’s no empty blank space.”
The ‘spiral,’ Krapf says, is a ‘very important’ part of the show.
“We have some props on the field, and you’ll see that in those shapes we fill them with spirals to fill the space, and so the spiral is a very important part of the show,” Krapf added.
There are 52 students in the Vikings Marching Band.
Krapf has been directing the Vikings for 12 years and plans on directing for years to come.
“I’m all in, so hoping to finish my career here,” he said.
There will be plenty of snacks for those watching the bands to enjoy.
“We’ve got several food trucks that are coming — some local,” Krapf said. “We have a snack concession area with drinks and cookies and chips and stuff like that… And then the food trucks are like your heavier meals and stuff. We have Wiener Wagons coming. There’s a taco truck…there’s a dessert truck of some kind.”
Spectators may take photos from the stands, but Krapf asks that no one go out onto the field unless they are performing.
The schedule of band peforming:
Fieldcrest at 4:30.Thornwood at 4:45.St. Joseph-Ogden at 5Casey-Westfield at 5:15.Rantoul at 5:30.Mt. Carmel at 5:45.Paxton-Buckley-Loda at 6.Champaign Central at 6:15.Danville Band of the Vikings at 6:30.
Following the bands, awards will be announced at 6:45.
The gates at Ned Whitesell Field open at 3:30 p.m. General admission is $10 per person; seniors and students are $9, and children 5-and-under get in for free.