Sustainable Change in NMU Band - Sustainability Hub for Innovation & Environment

The Pride of the North Marching Band makes a huge sustainable change for the 2024 football season! 

To learn every show the Marching Band in the past has used flip folders and copies of paper music. The band's student librarian staff would collect and pass out songs that were used for multiple years; however when the band played a new song there would need to be copies created for the 134 member band. 

The other element of the band includes learning how to march the drill on the field. For every show, which the band plays at 5 football games each year, there was a printed drill chart. Each different formation that the band creates on the field has a page showing where the student would march & stand. This means that for every formation in every show, each member would receive a packet that averages 15 pages. 

For one full season the Pride of the North marches, the band has used around 43,000 to 45,000 sheets of 8.5 x 11 inches of paper to get all of the band marching in our 5 shows. A lot of the band members have been with the marching band for their entire college career. Meaning that to march all four years they have used 300 sheets of paper. 

To put into the context of resources, one tree will make around 10,000 sheets of paper. To support one season the band has used around 4.5 trees. This is a lot of resources when there is another option for the band to learn their show. 

For the 2024 and future years, the Pride of the North Marching band is now paperless! All members have downloaded two apps, BEAM and Ultimate Drill Book to read their music and drill off of their iphones. There is a huge thank you to Northern Michigan University for paying for these two apps to make this sustainable change possible. 

Come see the band perform at these upcoming performances to check out their new phone flip folders in action: 

All performances will take place at the Northern Michigan Dome, on the following Saturdays with a pregame show starting at 12:30.

• September 21st 
• October 5th 
• October 19th 
• November 2nd 

The band is excited for this new era of sharing our love for music with the community, while sustaining our resource consumption for the future. 

Learn more information about the marching band here! 

Written by: Isabelle Honkomp