My friend and I recently got hired on teaching the DL at a new high school built here in our town. Good news is the kids were transferred from other schools in the area who already have decent drum programs so we have a pretty decent group of players. Bad news is the director wants to get a head start on winter season so we can "come out with a bang!" and we don't have a show with no time to really come up with anything this fast on our own. Does anyone know of a place where you can purchase winter shows on line? I hate the thought of having to do this but it's kind of our only choice at this point in time. Any help would be greatly appreciated!

I used to think purchasing a show was an awful thing as well but unfortunately there are just some people that are not cut out to program an entire show. Not that it would apply to your situation but some people are more cut out to clean a show than to design one. Anyways, here are a couple links.

http://www.shanegwaltney.com/shows.php

http://www.xtremebrass.com/xtp/indoor.php

I'm sure Rowloff probably offers some packages as well. Good luck.

There are a number of sites out there with varying difficulty shows available. I have had great success and won medals with "off the shelf" shows int he scholastic arena.

The 2 I highly recommend are in order of preference:

VisAudio Designs: Can custom write a QUALITY show with *little wait time, purchase an existing show, etc. www.visaudiodesigns.com email them and tell them I sent you their way and they will do you a great job! You can see some of their work on youtube (Imperial Percussion 2010, Clear Brook H.S., and a number of others). VA designers see the entire process through, even work up needed samples, narration, as well as provide very quick turn around on any changes/rewrites.

Marching Show Concepts: I used them with a school on a low budget. Low budget doesn't mean crappy show cause I have top 3'd in our class, 4 years in a row with their shows. If you contact them talk with David Bolzman he is an awesome guy and very helpful through out the entire season.

*Edit: when I say little wait time I mean they are very proficient about turn around time. I have had nightmares with writers and having to stay on them or deal with the never hear from them for 3 months. These guys are NOT like that.

I'm not sure what your budget is. If you need a decent show for fairly cheap, I like JKS Music. They work well in my circuit here in Utah. If you've got money to throw around, I love Box6 Percussion. The show comes to you ready to put on the floor. All of the GE things are there, they even provide the sounds samples and ideas for staging. They write for a lot of top tier ensembles, most notably, Pulse and I really enjoy their arranging.

Also, there really is no 'turn around' time with either of these. The shows are 'stock'. You pay, they send the scores. You can listen to the music on either website. I'm not sure about JKS Music, but I do know that Box6 offers regional protection.

I second MSConcepts... that's were our school (and many school near us) gets our band shows from, and their shows are pretty good.

My post is a bit more specific, but with a site that isn't quite as nice as the others. When you say you want to come out "with a bang," you could, rather ironically, have a show called "The Big Bang." I marched this show my freshman year of high school (so, it's been about 4 years), and it was a great show, all-in-all. It's here on AV Bundle. If I remember correctly, this is NOT where we purchased the music, but it's here, nonetheless.

http://www.avbundle.com/shows_percussion.php

I would recommend

http://www.keypoulanmusic.com/music/imp

AND

http://www.msconcepts.com/shows/ip_list.asp

Both of those places are where my school and basically all the other groups in WGAZ buy their shows from. They are all really great and have some challenging music as well themes that can lead to great theatrical stuff.