For Temple’s marching band, the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade is a ‘once-in-a-lifetime’ moment

When Hugh Strother learned in August 2024 that Temple University’s marching band would be among the 11 playing the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade on Thursday, he was disappointed. As a senior marketing major hoping to graduate in May 2025, he would just miss fulfilling a childhood dream. 

So Strother, who plays trombone and grew up watching the parade with his family, decided to stay an extra semester. 

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“I kept thinking about it and I’m like, ‘Well, this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, I don’t really mind going in just a little bit more debt about that,'” Strother said. “I realized my time isn’t done yet. I really feel like this is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to get to stay here with more of my friends, have fun for one more year, really taking the whole experience from year-start to year-end.”

The Diamond Band, which is celebrating its 100th anniversary, was selected from hundreds of bands to march the two-mile route in New York City alongside giant balloons, floats and singers. The 200-member band will perform a medley of songs, including a K-Pop Demon Hunters number and the Temple fight song. NBC will begin televising the parade at 8:30 a.m. Thursday.

The performance will be the Diamond Band’s first in the parade, which was first held in 1924. For Matt Brunner, 54, the band’s director for the last 18 years, it has been a long time coming. His high school in Dover, Ohio, performed in the parade in 1972, when he was an infant. As a teenager, his knowledge of this performance sparked his interest in one day marching in the parade.

“Whenever I would walk into the band room for rehearsals every day, there was a banner that hung in the back of the room that said ‘Macy’s Parade 1972,’ so I literally saw that every day,” Brunner said. “It’s something that, for marching bands, that’s the goal. This is something you hope that you would get the chance to do at some point in time in your life, and here we are.”

Bands have to send a resume, performance videos, uniform pictures and examples of their community impact to be selected for the parade. Brunner said Temple has applied a few times in the past without being selected. This time, he highlighted the band’s reputation for pop culture-themed shows — like its “Barbie”-themed performance, which was paired with student-made parody videos of the 2023 movie. The Diamond Band also went viral in 2016 for a Panic! At the Disco-themed show.

The Diamond Band learned it would play the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade during its band camp in 2024. Brunner said he’s spent the last year preparing students for the performance, including marching technique. The band learns new songs for every football game, and several of its more popular songs are being included in the medley. 

Despite the millions of eyeballs expected on Thursday, Brunner said he mostly wants his students to enjoy the opportunity. The band won’t be able to play again until 2030 at the earliest, per parade rules. So most, if not all, of the band’s members won’t get to do this again during their time at Temple.

“I just want them to enjoy the moment as they go, because it’s going to be a really, really fun time,” Brunner said. “And then I hope for the band moving forward, I hope more people get to see that what this band is about, the energy and the personality of the band. … If you’ve seen it live, it’s just something that you can’t describe, because they’re so energetic and they pull you in for their performance so much.”

Saniyah Davis, a senior computer science major and piccolo player, said she’s never even seen the Macy’s parade on TV — she always slept through it as a child. But she’s eager to put the months of rehearsals into action. 

“It’s exciting to see all the work we’ve done throughout the season to finally come to this point, but it’s also nerve-racking that we know our performance is coming up, and this is a one-and-done thing,” Davis said. “There’s no re-dos.” 

Camilla Romero, a senior media studies and production major who plays tenor saxophone, said the ever-changing contemporary music and dance breaks make the Diamond Band unique. It’s an extracurricular activity that everyone really enjoys doing, she said, and she’s excited to be able to end her experience on such a high note. 

“Everybody in the band has worked so hard, putting all their love and dedication to it. I’m very proud of everyone who’s a part of it,” Romero said. “I do want to give a big thanks to people that came before us, even though they’re not able to make it with us. We know that their dedication and love for the band is one of the reasons why our generation could get here.”