The West Salem Marching Band Festival is a Music For All (Bands of America) Affiliate Event. During prelims, marching bands will have a clinic with all of the judges on the field. Directors can use this time how they wish. During finals, bands will perform. Directors can choose to perform in exhibition, comments only, or to be included in the scoring portion and be competitive. After the finals performances, there will be a drum major only awards ceremony where both caption awards and placement trophies will be awarded. Captions include Outstanding Music, Outstanding Visual, and Outstanding General Effect. Placement trophies will be awarded for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place.