<p>My son was in a big high school band, over 200 members. The travel fees were $500 per year, which included local, non-local and BOA tournament travel and rooming. There were also numerous volunteer and fundraising opportunities for parents who couldn’t pay up front. </p>
<p>Once in college, the tables were turned and the band started paying us! They gave us free season tickets, and gave my son a free meal ticket for band camp week, and free travel to all games, parades and bowl games.</p>
<p>My oldest was in band at a medium-large suburban high school and I was on the Band Parent Board. Kids were provided with uniforms and after my son graduated the band parents paid for new uniforms (using several years of fund raising).</p>
<p>Overall fees were about $200-$250 but most of that went for band camp (one week camp at the end of the summer), which , while not mandatory, was attended by almost all band members. Other costs included the band trip which varied (once every four years the Band went to Disney and costs included air fare but mostly bus trips) - again not mandatory. Fund raises were also not mandatory, but some counted toward the students fees for camp or the trips.</p>
<p>Other costs included fund raisers, donations of food for pre-competition dinners and parties, gloves and shoes as well as tickets and parking fees for competitions. </p>
<p>Our band gave our scholarships for a number of years, but decided to stop giving out money as the fund raising became too difficult and deciding which kids were more deserving was too difficult. That greatly reduced the fund raising pressure. </p>
<p>Loved being a band mom and all the competitions. Miss that even now, several years later.</p>
<p>BOA band costing $1000 a year not including extra uniform parts like undershirts, shoes, shakos, etc. and not including mandatory trips to competitions (like Grand Nationals this year). There are plenty of opportunities though to raise some money towards fees.</p>
<p>Son just finished 4 years of marching band at a small, parochial school (<600) that had an unusually large band: 100+. Fees included a $50 uniform fee, which I paid his freshman year and had returned to me when he turned in his uniform prior to graduation. Some marching shoes were available (luckily a pair in his size), otherwise parents paid $20 for the shoes, but could keep them. All other day-to-day expenses were covered by the school. The big expense for families was the 4-5 day competition trip they took in the spring - each family had to pay for their student to go on the trip (however, if you didn’t send your student, you didn’t pay.) Costs ranged from $600-$1000 per year (the big cost being the year they went to Disney) There were lots of fundraising opportunities for the band members, with all the money going toward their individual account. The school also had one of those “gift card” fundraising programs, and you could designate the money to go in to the child’s band account.</p>
<p>Public high school marching band that competes. $120.00 year plus $20. for shoes. One tshirt provided. Uniforms provided (loaned) and have to pay for dry cleaning at end of season. We are not in a very affluent area so I doubt that they would be able to charge more. There are cities around that have huge extravagant shows, and schools that are lucky the bus makes it to the competition.</p>
<p>We pay $350, which covers band camp and associated fees. We also pay a $10 uniform cleaning fee. We run the concessions at our home football games, as well as run a big carnival every June. We have a tiny band, but we compete about every other weekend and tend to do well in our region.</p>
<p>D is in colorguard, and her shoes are $40, and about $15 for her gloves. I’ve only had to buy shoes two years, because they go with either black or nude colored shoes, and she now has both. Students can work at the carnival to work off their bill.</p>
<p>I was in band in high school. My band was and is pretty big. Our band fee was about 250-275 dollars, plus a competition fee (for the members of competitive band) of about 110 dollars, plus 50 dollars (I think) for gloves and shoes. We also had to buy Hot and Cold Gear Under Armour for warmups, and that ran about 30-40 dollars each.</p>
<p>We also had to play in concert band, and we had to buy tuxes/dresses. We had to pay money for band banquet tickets. Since we had a big trip every two years or so, families had to budget about 2000 per family member going, depending on the trip.</p>
<p>Each of my kids did MB for four years and youngest graduated last spring. No upfront fee at our suburban/urban high school with a large low-income population on the theory that administrators did not want to exclude anyone because they could not afford to join. But at the same time there was minimal financial or psychological support from the school or theoretically “top ranked” school district. New uniforms were bought via a gigantic fundraising effort about 8-9 years ago. But kids had to pay for their own shoes, black socks and gloves and t-shirts worn at non-uniform performances, dry cleaning fee for uniforms at the end of the year. Most had their own instruments except the school did have some percussion including bass drums. Parents and kids raised funds for virtually everything - travel, new music, equipment, you name it. Wealthier schools in our district could do much more thanks to parents with deeper pockets, so when our school tried some MB competitions it was very depressing. Nonetheless my kids fiercely loved their school and their MB.</p>
<p>Our school’s band costs are expensive. About 100 students and they have won state competition almost every year. Very intense and prestigious program.</p>
<p>$600 covers the cost of the choreography, music rights, sectionals training, and also a 5 day overnight band camp during the summer.</p>
<p>$75 for personal clothing items such as the shoes, tshirts, gloves, feather plume.</p>
<p>We have 2 curricular bands at our school and the top band wins all sorts of awards. This year, they were invited to Indianapolis for competition and it costs $700/student.</p>