From March 22 to March 24, the orchestra and band groups at San Juan Hills held a music festival. 

What is Festival?

• Festival is a three day event where about 54 schools from all over Southern California come together at one school every year, to perform in front of the judges. 
• Each group from the schools are all scored from one through five. One being the closest to perfect, and five being poor. 
• After each performance is finished there is something called a clinic. The clinic is where one of the judges that scored the groups, will compliment them on how well they performed and then tell them on ways to improve. 
• Some schools are also welcomed to remain in the audience and watch before or after their performances to show their support to the other schools. 

How do schools host Festival?

• First off, all the students in the San Juan Hills orchestra and band department work the Festival, stationed at different job posts. They help all the schools coming in and make sure the performances run smoothly. 
• There are many different work positions to run at the festival. 
• For example there are guides who escort the incoming schools through different parts of the event, and stagehands who reset the stage every time for new schools and announce what orchestra’s are playing. There is also the grill and snack-bar that is run both by students and parent volunteers. The students run the snack-bar, while the parents grill the dinner for the schools and judges.

Who gets to play at the Festival?

• Since the Festival is not a competition, there is no need for schools to audition in order to play. 
• High school groups are not the only ones who can perform, even middle school groups are allowed to sign-up and perform as well. 
• Overall the Festival is not a competition, it is an event simply to see how far the schools orchestra have gotten. It is more of a way to see how they have grown as a group and ways to enhance what they can do.