The Corinth Holders High School Marching Band celebrated the start of 2024 by performing in London.
The band was invited to participate in London’s New Year’s Day Parade and Festival at Piccadilly Circus, which is the city’s equivalent to New York’s Times Square. The event attracts more than 10,000 participants annually.
“I have never seen so many people in my life,” band director Olivia Dovespell told WRAL News.
“I attended the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade several years ago as a spectator, and this does not – it doesn’t hold a candle to it. There were people everywhere.”
Dovespell said it took about 18 months of fundraising to raise more than half a million dollars to fund the trip.
“Once you include uniforms and flags and equipment and odds and ends, there was about $520,000 our parents, families and students and community helped us raise. Our families, families from afar, families near, donations, sponsorships, all kinds of wonderful things came together to make this trip …