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What Is Your Biggest Challenge as a Band Director?

At Peak Performance Tours, we know that being a band director isn’t all the sweet sound of music at school assemblies and community parades.  The role comes with its challenges.

But that doesn’t mean you don’t love it.  You wouldn’t be where you are if you didn’t.  We also know how tempting it is to throw that clarinet out the window when one of your kids is repeatedly using it to play the snake charmer song in your instrumental survey class.

That one gets old fast.

Band directors come to us year after year to plan tours for their marching bands, enroll them in competitions, or send them overnight to parades all over the country.  So, we’ve gotten to know a few of them.  This post details the number one challenge band directors have shared with us, over the years.

We’re sure this will sound familiar.  Maybe you have something to add.  Got a story about your biggest challenge as a band director?  Feel free to share it below in the comments.

Funding gap.

We’ve been around for 20 years at Peak, but in recent years, more and more band directors are relating a funding gap with respect to their music programs.  It’s not that most band programs don’t receive incremental increases, year to year.  It’s that those increases aren’t keeping pace with the real costs involved in running an effective program.

A lot of kids take an interest in music, but when there’s a supplemental cost associated with entering the program, they hesitate.  This can prevent talented students from joining music programs.

The cost of instruments, like the cost of everything, has risen.  Budgeting has failed to keep pace with this reality.  Consider, for example, that a tuba can cost between $10 and $15,000.  Sheet music for one song? Around $70.

That adds up.

It also leaves little in the kitty for trips, tours and excursions, which are a vital part of any quality school music program.  But Peak can help.

Fundraising resources.

Fundraising for the needs of your music program or band trip is a unique educational opportunity.  Students learn to work together, to create a revenue stream for their planned excursion that draws them together.

This bonds your students into a cohesive group with one purpose – to get what they need to go on that trip!

Over our more than 2 decades in the student tour sector, Peak has guided educators through the many resources out there to make band trips and tours affordable.  We’ve come to know which are the most effective and offer the highest yield.  Check out our fundraising page and discover a world of ways to bridge the funding gap that’s challenging so many school band directors.

Peak will also donate to your group when you refer others to us.  That’s a very real opportunity to raise money, at 20% of the commission paid.

Peak believes in the work people like you do, raising new generations of musicians.  Contact us to find out more.