MARSHALL — From having a huge spider to a merry-go-round on the field, anything can be possible as high school marching bands compete this Saturday at Marshall’s annual Pursuit of Excellence.

The 24th annual event will be at 5:30 p.m. Saturday at the Regional Event Center at Southwest Minnesota State University. Gates open at 4:30 p.m.

This year’s Pursuit features 20 bands, plus Marshall and SMSU. MHS band director Wayne Ivers said four of the bands are from Iowa, 12 are from South Dakota and four from Minnesota. Marshall will perform at 10:40 p.m. in a judged exhibition.

Ivers said Pursuit’s first year had five bands attending. A year later, that number grew to 14, and there have been 18 to 20 bands participating every year since. Ivers said they’ve turned away three to five bands a year for the past five to six years.

Pursuit started with both a field show and a parade, Ivers said.

“The parade died off after three to four years due to lack of enrollment and as the number of bands for the clinics increased,” Ivers said. “The first competition was held at the Old Mattke Stadium in the afternoon because there were no lights there at that time.”

Ivers said he sends out invitations to bands in March/April, and it is “pretty much first come, first served.”

“I sent the invite out at 4 p.m and had eight bands by 8 p.m. that night and had 16 by noon the next day,” he said.

Pursuit is different because there are more judges than a traditional competition, Ivers said.

“A traditional approach has two music judges, one looking at a more individual playing approach — this judge is usually on the field listening to individual players and sections, and one an overall music effect approach from the press box listening to the ensemble playing as a group,” Ivers said. “The same for visual — one more individual marching and member marching skills watching from the field, the other an overall visual program approach, which includes props, forms on the field, the color guard, all things visual that affect or detract from the music.”

There are also a color guard judge and a percussion judge that strictly concentrate on those groups, Ivers said.

“We add an additional music and visual judge that looks at more of an ensemble approach rather than individual or effect standpoint, and we also have an additional color guard and percussion judge,” Ivers said. “Partly so that we have enough for the clinics and partly because more feedback is always welcome.”

The take away for the band students is being able to work with national caliber clinicians.

“It isn’t just feedback on the show they are presenting although that is a big part but really centers around proper playing of their instruments, proper marching technique, and for the color guards work on their equipment, movement and dance technique,” Ivers said. “Judges will observe and suggest and even make changes to their program, some immediate, some to the director to be instated in the next few weeks. Some of these bands have only two to four staff members who may not even see them all of the time, so adding a couple of clinicians to work directly with them for two hours is really appreciated by both the kids and their instructors.”

Pursuit is a huge variety show, Ivers said, with everything from show tunes to serious music to everything in between.

“Some bands have original music written just for this show, and others have music arranged from pop music, or even classical music,” he said. For example, he said, a show titled “Glitch” — is about a short-lived fault in the system, where the show has LED lights on props going off everywhere, “The Web We Weave” has a huge spider on the field and “Playground,” has a 24-foot merry-go-round. “So pretty much anything you can imagine will be on the field.”

For this year’s show, the Marshall Tiger marching band is performing “Amelia,” which is based on the accomplishments of Amelia Earhart.

“We have some narration running throughout describing some of the amazing feats that she accomplished and then we try to portray them in the music we play, not necessarily telling her life story,” Ivers said. “We have received lots of good comments on the show concept, design and some of the ideas we put out there. We have included a field tarp this year that looks like an airplane runway.”