Beginning in 1983, State Preliminaries was removed, and instead bands receiving a Division I rating at District competition advanced to, depending on their geographic location, either the North Regional or South Regional for their class, two weeks after District.
Beginning in 2008, the top ten bands from each class at each Regional site will advance to a new Semi-State round of competition, held the week immediately following Regionals (historically the week that State Finals has been held).
Of the twenty bands in each class at Semi-State, the top ten will then advance to State Finals the following week.
An open weekend was allotted between District and Regionals should a change of date for District be necessitated by inclement weather (should it not be needed, it was typically filled with unsanctioned invitational competitions); however, no such weekend was allotted between Regionals and State Finals due to the difficulty of securing venues for the final two stages of competition.
The move was necessitated by the decision of the administrators of the Indiana Convention Center (directly adjacent to the brand-new Lucas Oil Stadium that would be used by the Marching Band State Finals) to schedule the Future Farmers of America National Convention on the weekend that had historically been used for State Finals.