When The Home Group Wins

In an age when more and more groups are competing, more and more groups also have cheering sections with them at their shows. Friends, significant others, parents, legit fans won over at a campus show—they’ll make time for a whole competition for the sake of cheering on their favorites, and they’ll even travel to do so.

Despite traveling fanships, though, it’s rare for any group to have more supporters than the “home team”—the group based out of the school where the competition is happening, or at least closer to the venue than any of the other competitors.

You can claim that this dynamic gives the home team the advantage, on account of more crowd support, besides not having to travel, navigate an unfamiliar city, or perform on an unfamiliar stage—these advantages are for another time and place. For this post, I’m focusing on the joy of a group winning a competition in front of its supporters.

It’s the explosion of cheers when it happens. The wave of hugs and high fives after the encore. The palpable excitement in the room, for the sensation that not just the group, but the local community is moving up in the world.

Over the past twelve years, I’ve traveled to a lot of a cappella competitions. I may not always agree that the home group should have won, and I may have even come in rooting for someone else, but there’s nonetheless something about getting swept up in the excitement of a hometown crowd, celebrating its success.

I love it!