Band members will leave for the week-long trip Dec. 28, with some flying out of Chicago and others departing from Minneapolis.

Their tentative itinerary includes visits to Westminster Abbey, the Tower of London, Hampton Court Palace, Stonehenge and the city of Bath. Some free time also is built into the schedule so students can explore the city on their own.

For some band members, like freshman Keaton Hull of Waverly, it will be their first time flying.

“I’m a little nervous,” Hull admitted. “But I’m really looking forward to performing in the parade. At the end of the parade, we run on and have two minutes to play with the color guard. We do a salsa kind of dance and then run off. There will be a lot of energy.”

The parade begins at noon on New Year’s Day, and the band will play in front of a series of bandstands. The route covers two miles through the heart of Westminster, featuring The Ritz Hotel, Piccadilly Circus, Trafalgar Square and more. It attracts about a million spectators and is broadcast live.

In one corner of the UNI-Dome, Michelle Neuwirth, a trumpet player and one of the band’s uniform managers, helped sort and hand out uniforms. The trip will be Neuwirth’s third to London, but she is still excited to go.