Despite the fantastic efforts of the Norwegian Band Federation to make sure everything here has run to time and without a hitch, they must have known there was going to be an unintentional moment of comedy farce.

And it occurred at the official opening and the all important draw for the Championship Section set work section.

Jeux Sant Frontier

All that was needed to complete the European ‘Jeux Sant Frontier’ moment was Eddie Waring holding the draw bag and for Stuart Hall to be compere, as it all descended into the type of Norwegian farce not even Henrik Ibsen could make up in one of his rare sojourns into black comedy.

The comedy hiatus that followed saw EBBA act quickly though, and the decision was made by the contest controller to cancel the draw and start again4BR

Amazement

The draw started well with Brass Band Fribourg picking out Kelly’s Eye and it seemed to be going smoothly until it came to the seventh band Cory. Up popped John Southcombe on behalf of the band and picked out number 3 – much to the amazement of the audience at the Atlantic Hall – as a few moments earlier, Brass Band Oberosterreich had drawn out the same number from the velvet bag.

Hiatus

The comedy hiatus that followed saw EBBA act quickly though, and the decision was made by the contest controller to cancel the draw and start again – much to Fribourg’s delight, but perhaps not to Kirkintilloch, who had earlier picked out draw number 4 and were now faced with playing number 1.

Right thing

The consensus though was that EBBA had done the right thing and EBBA President Ulf Rosenberg told 4BR that under the circumstances everyone agreed that a new draw had to be made.

Ulf also told 4BR in an interview on Saturday (see above) that it has now meant that they will double check the final results before they are announced later this evening!