Green Machine at the 95th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival

On April 30th, Green Machine Ensembles had the opportunity to participate in the 95th Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival in Winchester, Virginia. This is an incredible event that spans an entire week, attracts a quarter of a million tourists, and culminates with the Grand Feature Parade at the end of the week. This year, Green Machine Ensembles sent six ensembles to participate in the Grand Feature Parade! The Patriots Fife and Drum Corps, the 8th Green Machine Regiment Band, the Spirit Drumline, the Dirty Gold Brass Band with the Emerald Desire Dance Team, and the Green & Gold Soul Band all had the opportunity to perform for over 100,000 people during the Grand Feature Parade and then perform afterwards outside the historic Old Town Hall in downtown Historic Winchester.

The parade route was just under 2 miles long, which was the longest parade any of the ensembles have marched so far! In addition to the six Green Machine ensembles, the Mason Patriot was there to rock with us and pump up the crowd! Members of the Green Machine Media team were also present to take videos and pictures of the groups. The photos accompanying this article were taken by Vincent Mcgarry.

The parade route was packed with tourists, oftentimes multiple rows deep. If you were to sit down and watch the parade from beginning to end, it would have been over 3 hours long! A video of the entire parade was streamed and can be viewed here. Are you able to find the six Green Machine groups? Hint: The first unit you should see is Dirty Gold with Emerald Desire and the last unit should be Green & Gold Soul on a float.

We want to thank Anne Marie Utz, Chris Martin, our parade sponsors, and the whole Shenandoah Apple Blossom Festival team for inviting us to this incredible event. We are looking forward to hopefully coming back in the future!