PitCrew: Columbus Marching Festival

Location: Columbus, NE 68601

Parade:

Downtown Columbus

Field Competition:

3420 Pawnee Plaza, Columbus, NE
(GPS: 41.422016587335065, -97.36917093241031 )

2026 updated information:

The 2026 Columbus competition will be on Oct. 10, 2026.

The Band will load from 7:00-7:30 am and leave KHS by 7:30 am on Saturday.  The trailer will be loaded on Friday afternoon at 2:30 pm, but we will load hat bags and uniforms on Saturday morning at 7:00 am. The trailers will travel with the buses to Columbus.

At 9:30 am we arrive in Columbus at Pawnee Park and the band gets in uniform.  We need to unload the instruments (for the parade) at this time (same as at Fine Arts before a football game).  We will be at Pawnee Park in Columbus (where the field competition is – on the South side of Columbus – just North of the river entering Columbus from the South on the highway, the park is on the west side of the highway).  The trailers will remain at the Pawnee Park parking lot – only the buses will go to the parade. Once in uniform with instruments, we load buses (10:30 am) and go to the downtown area (16th Ave & 17th St). We can then go watch the parade until Kearney marches through.  Kearney’s step off is approximately 11:35 am. When Kearney is done marching the parade (approximately 12:15 pm), we walk back to Frankfort Square and wait for awards. After awards proceed to the buses at 12th Street and 28th Ave and head back to Pawnee Park to change out of uniform. Then load the buses to go for lunch.

After the lunch break, we load buses by 3:00 pm and go to Pawnee Park.  The bus parking is East of the field, and the trailer parking is in the lot to the south-east of the bus parking lot. All cars and spectators will park West of the football stadium. Once parked, you can walk around the South side of the field on the paved road to get to the parking lot where the trailers are parked.

We need to be ready to unload the trailer by 3:00 pm. Look for our trailers parked Southeast of the field. We unload the trailers at 3:00 pm and prepare for the competition.  We will need to assist the students in moving the pit equipment to their warm-up area by 4:00 pm for a 4:00 warm up time, and then to the competition field by 4:20 pm to be on-deck at 4:30 pm. 

Kearney’s performance time is 4:45 pm.  We follow Norfolk High School. Note that we will enter the field from the South side of the stadium, so we will be lined up to enter in modified field order (we line up in reverse order of the UNK field halftime shows).  Once our performance is complete, we exit the field on the North side of the stadium and move our equipment back to the trailer and load the trailer to prepare for travelling home. The Awards are at 5:30 pm.

We will leave for Kearney by 6:00 pm, stop in Grand Island at 7:00 for dinner, then leave GI for Kearney at 8:30 pm and arrive in Kearney around 9:30 pm. Plans are to stop for a dinner break on the way home.  We unload the trailer back in to the Band room when we get back to the High School at 9:30 pm.

It will be a big day, but remember that we are representing Kearney – let’s do our very best.

Thank you for signing up on Signup Genius so we know we have enough help. We appreciate you supporting the Band by helping on the Pit Crew.

Remember to wear BLUE.

Call Ed Uden 308-440-0694 with questions.

Note: 2024 Guest Admission was $8 Adults / $5 Students – Cash only.
Concessions does accept credit cards. Concessions Menu

Columbus Parade Map:

Columbus Competition Site Map:

Columbus Pawnee Park Map: