The bands are back.

After a year hiatus, Kansas University’s Band Day is returning, but with the fewest number of bands in at least seven years.

About 50 bands from Kansas and Missouri are expected to be in town Saturday for a 1 p.m. downtown parade and a halftime performance at KU football’s home opener against Southwest Missouri State. Kickoff is at 6 p.m.

Last year’s Band Day was canceled after game time was switched to 11 a.m. to accommodate network television. The late-morning game was too early to have a parade and rehearsal beforehand.

“We had a lot of calls and questions about it last year,” said Tom Stidham, KU’s associate director of bands. “A lot of people missed that downtown parade, so I’m glad we’re doing it again.”

But this year’s Band Day will be scaled back from past years. In its heyday, the event drew 100 bands to Lawrence. The 2000 Band Day drew 60 bands.

Although Stidham wasn’t sure whether taking last year off hurt KU’s Band Day, he said budget cuts probably kept some bands from traveling. And he said some schools had to choose between coming to Lawrence and going to Manhattan, where Kansas State University is also having its annual band day.

“We haven’t in the past really tried to coordinate our efforts with Dr. (Frank) Tracz (Kansas State band director) over there,” Stidham said. “It mostly has to do with our decisions and when our athletic department decides it should be.”

The conflicting band days made for a predicament for Rob Foster, band director at Eudora High School. He has taken his students to Band Day at KU  where his father recently retired as director of bands  the last three years.

This year he wanted to take his 55-piece band to both KU and KSU until he realized the events were on the same day.

“We try to get as many performance opportunities as possible,” he said. “With both of them on the same day  even if you just did the K-State parade and came back for the KU performance  it’d be cutting it real close.”

Foster said he picked the KSU event, which is scheduled to have 35 bands, because his drum major is a Kansas State fan who plans to attend the university next fall.

“Although I’m partial to KU, I try to get my students out to see what’s going on at other schools,” he said.

KU’s 1 p.m. parade will start at Seventh Street and march down Massachusetts Street to South Park. The 50 high school bands  including Lawrence and Free State high schools  the KU Marching Band and the New Horizons Band, made up of Lawrence senior citizens, will participate.

At 3 p.m., the mass band  3,500 to 3,800 musicians strong  will rehearse at Memorial Stadium. The halftime performance, with musicians stretched from one 5-yard line to the other, will feature patriotic music as a tribute to Sept. 11 victims.

“That’s something John Q. Public never seems to get tired of,” Stidham said.

The pregame show also will have a patriotic flair. One hundred volunteers from local police, fire and ROTC units will help unveil a 75- by 150-foot American flag shaped like the United States. The flag was used at opening-day games for the Colorado Rockies and San Francisco Giants and at Wednesday’s Cleveland Indians game.