The Niles High School football field was rocking and rolling to the sights and sounds of 10 area high school marching bands competing in Wednesday’s MSBOA District 6 Marching Band Festival.

Niles and Buchanan received the highest possible rating of division 1, while Edwardsburg received a division 2 rating and Cassopolis a division 3 rating.

All festivals are judged on a five-division scale, with division one being the best and division five the worst.

The District Marching Festival is the only MSBOA Sponsored Festival during the fall. There many marching invitationals hosted by schools, but they are not MSBOA affiliated.

Joshua Doe, Niles band director, described his students’ performance as excellent.

“Niles has a growing band that played an exciting and musical show. I am very excited to see what the future holds for the rest of their year,” he said. “I would like to thank our seniors for all their dedication to this group, and their excellent leadership. Also, I’d like to thank our fantastic band boosters for all of their support.”

The five divisional ratings used for all festivals are defined as follows:

Division 1 will represent an excellent level of performance and musicianship for the event.

Division 2 will represent a good performance, but not worthy of the highest rating because of minor defects in performance or ineffective interpretation. Shows much accomplishment and promise.

Division 3 will represent a fair performance, but not outstanding. Shows accomplishment and promise, but is lacking in some essential qualities.

Division 4 will represent a poor performance lacking in many essential qualities.

Division 5 will represent an unsatisfactory performance.

Ratings by school:

River Valley — 1
Cassopolis — 3
Bridgeman — 1
Buchanan — 1
New Buffalo — 1
Watervliet — 1
Berrien Springs — 2
Edwardsburg — 2
Benton Harbor — 3
Niles — 1