British Open Organisers Announce Major Rule Changes and Spring Festival Test Pieces

Major Updates to British Open and Spring Festival Announced

Well, it's been a week of news about the British Open and Spring Festival contests. From new rules to 2025 set works - here's everything we know, so far.

Increased Prize Money at 2025 British Open

Bands who achieve a podium place at this year's British Open Brass Band Championships on 7th September, will be taking home more than a pretty piece of silverware. The organisers of the contest, held at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, have announced an increased prize pot that will see the winning band take home £4,500 and 2nd and 3rd placed bands claiming £2,500 and £2000, respectively.

In addition, it's not just podium placed bands who will recieve a monetary award for their efforts. Bands placed from 4th to 10th will also be awarded prize money. So, plenty of opportunities for competing bands to top up the coffers this year!

British Open and Spring Festival Rule Changes

2025 will see new rules that will determine a player's eligibility to compete with british-based bands in the British Open and Spring Festival contests.

From 1st January 2025, only players who are permanently registered as a UK resident or have residency as a student studying in the UK on a nationally recognised higher education course will be eligible to compete at the contests.

This controversial new ruling has been met with a mixed reception from brass banders on social media with some hailing the rule change as 'a sensible choice' that is a positive step to 'strengthening British banding' and 'making contests fairer. Others have deemed the new rulings as 'terrible' and 'ridiculous' with some even questioning whether they are against the Human Rights Act.

In addition to the eligibility criteria, the organisers of the British Open have also announced changes to the rules surrounding players moving to other bands between contests. From the 1st January 2025, players who have performed in the British Open, cannot perform with a different band at the following year's Spring Festival before returning back to their original band. Similarly, players who perform in the Spring Festival cannot perform at the British Open with a different band before signing back to their original band. However, in both instances, players would be able to play for a third band at either contest that wasn't their previous band.

I'll try to illustrate to the best of my understanding how this works, for anyone who is as confused as I was when I first read about these changes!

Example

I compete with Rainford Band at the Spring Festival 2025. In a bizarre turn of events, I'm then approached by Black Dyke to perform with them at the 2025 British Open. If I decided to compete with Black Dyke, I wouldn't be able to sign back with Rainford at the 2026 Spring Festival - I would have to stay at Black Dyke or transfer to another band entirely if I wanted to take part in the Spring Festival. In short, Black Dyke wouldn't be able to use me solely for the 2025 British Open. I would have to forfeit performing in the Spring Festival with Rainford Band specifically.

Vice versa - say I've been a signed member at Black Dyke for a while and I'm competing in this year's British Open. Next year, Rainford approach me to play for them at the Spring Festival. If I agree to do it, I can't sign back to Black Dyke afterwards and take part in the 2025 British Open with them. I would either have to stay with Rainford (regardless of whether they qualified for the Open or not) or join a completely different band that had qualified for the Open in order to take part in that particular competition. In short, Rainford wouldn't be able to use me solely for the 2025 Spring Festival - I would have to forfeit the British Open with Black Dyke specifically.

Make sense?

Now, don't get me wrong, after the negativity surrounding the....let's call it 'inventive interpretation' of the Spring Festival rules at this year's contest, it's good to see that the organisers have understood where this negativity stemmed from and have tried to put measures in place to prevent bands playing the system.

However.

Will these rule changes stop the bands they are intended to impede? In my experience - probably not. The only bands these types of rules seem to affect are the bands who had every intention of competing honestly in the first place, making it harder for them to compete. They may also make it harder for international musicians, who are competing honestly with their own bands who they have been signed with for some time, more difficult. A factor that I categorically don't agree with. In short, my cynicism aside, if these rules are successful in preventing dishonest practice i.e.: bands strategically hiring certain players (either UK-based or international musicians) for one specific contest in order to have a better chance of winning - then I'm all for it. But I fear they may make things harder for bands who weren't competing dishonestly in the first place, whilst the offending bands will find another way to skirt around the rules as they always have done. We'll see.

Test Pieces Announced for the 2025 Spring Festival

The final gobbet of news that was announced about the 2025 Spring Festival was the chosen works for each section. It would seem that the announcements of the set works have been met with more criticism than enthusiasm. Comments on social media have harboured resentment with many banders calling the choices, 'god-awful', 'ridiculous' and 'terrible'. Maybe not the reaction the contest's organisers and promoters would have hoped for.

For a second year, bands competing in the Grand Shield section of the competition will not be performing the previous year's British Open test piece. Instead, they will be tackling Edward Gregson's 'Dances and Arias'.

The main concern shared on social media in response to this chosen work is it's technical difficulty in comparison to pieces typically chosen for the British Open. As a player performing with a band competing in the Grand Shield, I have to agree. Not that I don't like Dances and Arias, it's a terrific piece, but is it indicative of the standard required to perform in the British Open currently?

If the pieces currently being chosen for the British Open are being deemed too difficult for the Grand Shield, how do we know that the qualifying band will be able to cope with this standard of piece when they compete at the British Open? For me, it made sense to assign the previous year's British Open piece as (in theory) the winner of the Grand Shield is playing at a 'British Open' standard, and should be able to cope with the standard of piece in this contest. By this logic if you assign them an easier piece and they qualify, the difficulty of the British Open piece is going to be too big a step up for a band freshly qualified from the Grand Shield.

In my opinion this is the same as preparing an A level student for an exam with a GCSE practice paper and then wondering why they struggle with the difficulty of an A level exam paper. I've tried to make it make sense, but it simply doesn't. If the current British Open pieces are being deemed too difficult for bands competing in the qualifying contest - there is something fundamentally wrong here.

Moving on.

The bands competing in the Senior Cup has been assigned Martin Ellerby's 'Terra Australis' and the Senior Trophy bands will be tackling Malcolm Arnold's 'Fantasy for Brass Band'. Again these choices, have not stirred much enthusiasm. Now, I can imagine choosing pieces for these prestigious contests is no easy feat and it's impossible to please everybody. However, the mood online since these announcements has not been positive and I think it's important that the organisers take this into careful consideration.

It is no secret that banding is facing a shortage of musicians and the least amount of contest opportunities in history. So it's vital that we make changes that encourage rather than discourage in order for banders to want to take part in these contests and not looking to leave banding due to poor experiences in these contests. I understand it's hard to please everyone, but in the choices of test pieces within these contests, very, VERY few seem pleased. The voices of our community, especially those taking part in these contests, cannot go unheard.