Royals fans on campus got the chance to see some of their fellow students perform during Tuesday’s playoff game Sept. 30. Seventeen members of Missouri Southern’s drumline were invited to play at Kauffman Stadium in Kansas City throughout the Royals’ first postseason game in 30 years.

“It’s actually been an open invitation,” said Brian Fronzaglia, interim head of the music department, prior to the game, “but it’s something we’ve been talking about for a while. Given that [the Royals] are making the playoffs, and it’s the wild card race, all the stars aligned for them to be able to bring us up and for our schedule to actually work out.”

This is actually not the first time Southern’s drumline has performed for the Royals, however. According to Fronzaglia, the drumline first performed for them in 2011.

“We kind of did a trial run with them, so we were up there I think seven or eight times throughout the season,” said Fronzaglia. “Then during the 2012 season, when they were hosting the all-star game, I think we had a 25 game engagement with them — including the entire all-star week.”

The drumline departed for Kansas City on 3 p.m. Tuesday, just hours before the game began. While at Kauffman, they performed in the tailgate lots as well as down on the field for pre-game programs. They later gave in-game and post-game performances.

According to Fronzaglia, the members of the drumline are either in the group just to enjoy performing, because they are music education majors who will need to talk to their future students about different performance oportunities and experiences, or because they are performance majors, who will need experience performing in different venues.

“Regardless of what anybody’s take is, it provides a totally different avenue for performance,” said Fronzaglia. “Obviously, when we’ve got music majors here, they’re a little bit more classically trained, so putting them in front of a sports crowd where there’s a lot more performance involved and you’ve got between 20 and 30 thousand people you’re playing for every time, it kind of puts you in the spotlight and allows you to grow as a performers.”

In additon to the occasional perfomance for the Royals, Southern’s drumline also performs at various corporate events and are currently in talks to perform for the Joplin’s new minor league baseball team The Blasters.

“It’ll probably be similar to what we did with the Royals that first season,” said Fronzaglia of the possibility of performing for The Blasters, “taking the marquee games or some promotional stuff.”

For more information regarding Missouri Southern’s drumline, contact Fronzaglia at (417) 625-3061.