The 48th annual Washington Marching Band Festival will take place this Saturday, Oct. 1.The festival, hosted by Washington High School, will feature both a parade and a field competition with over 2,000 students from 28 high schools participating.Warrenton High School will compete in both events. Warrenton will compete in Class A in the parade competition and in Class B in the prelims in the field competition.The parade through Downtown Washington will begin at 8:30 a.m.Washington High will be the final band to march in the parade with an exhibition performance at approximately 10 a.m.Parade awards will be announced at 1 p.m. at Jim Scanlan Stadium at WHS.The field competition will take place at Scanlan Stadium starting at 12:15 p.m. It will continue all day and into the evening.Washington will give an exhibition performance at approximately 8:30 p.m.Finals awards are slated for 8:50 p.m.Ryan Lovell, WHS band director, said his students are excited to serve as host.Lovell said the festival is always a major undertaking and more than 200 volunteers, including parents, staff and others, will help to put it on.“We are extremely lucky to always have more than enough people willing to put this event together,” he said.There will be an admission charge for the field competition and award ceremonies. The cost is $8 for adults and $5 for students. Seniors and children under 5 get in free.Lovell said programs will be available to purchase at both the parade and field competitions.Spectators are reminded that no parking will be allowed along the shoulders of Highway 47. People may park along Fourteenth Street or use the parking available at the shuttle parking lot.Shuttles will be used to transfer spectators from parking at the Mercy Medical Building parking garage. These shuttles will take passengers to and from the Washington High School campus only. The shuttles will not provide transportation to or from the parade route.The shuttles will run from 10 a.m. until 9 p.m.ParadeThere will be 19 bands in the parade competition, plus Washington High School, which as the host band, will not be competing. The parade will begin at Main and Cedar streets and proceed east on Main to Jefferson Street. It will turn south on Jefferson to Eighth Street and end at Eighth and Sunnyside streets.The bands will require the full width of the street, so parking restrictions will apply along the route Saturday from 7:30 a.m. until about 11 a.m., or the end of the parade.Blue Jay Drive and both the high school and middle school campuses will be closed from 7 a.m. until 9 p.m., or the end of the festival.There will be three judging locations — at the intersection of Main and Oak streets; Jefferson and Third streets; and on Eighth Street in front of New Life Church.Field CompetitionLovell said the field competition will feature 17 bands in three classes.Classes are determined by the enrollment of the school in grades nine-12.The field competition will include a preliminary performance with bands competing against schools of similar size enrollments, Lovell said.The winner of each class plus the next four highest scoring bands, regardless of class, will perform in the finals.“Those eight bands will compete head to head in the finals competition that begins at 6:30 p.m.,” he said. “The benefit for the bands is that they will get to perform twice for the judges and get evaluated by two judges in every area of critique.”In addition to the placement awards, recognition will be given for Outstanding Percussion, Outstanding Auxiliary, Outstanding Music Performance and Outstanding Visual Performance.Lovell said one additional trophy will be presented to the highest scoring band that participates in both the parade competition and the field competition.Warrenton High School