Travis Wayne Vance was watching the closing ceremonies for the London Olympics earlier this week, and scoffed.

“I thought, ‘they need to come watch us,’” the Red Carpet Bowl committee chairman said with a laugh.

Vance’s Red Carpet Bowl pregame show won’t have quite the same stature as London’s finale, but will feature a spectacle rarely seen at a high school football game.

An estimated 900 band members, football players, cheerleaders, choir singers and dancers — along with a Humvee, several vintage military aircraft and a former Miss Mississippi — will take part. The pregame show starts at 5:30 this evening at Warren Central’s Viking Stadium. A pair of football games — Vicksburg vs. Pearl at 6, and Warren Central vs. Brandon at 8:30 — will follow.

It’s the 50th anniversary of Vicksburg’s signature football game, and Vance said the idea was to try something special for the occasion.

“All these years, the Red Carpet Bowl has been nothing but football,” Vance said. “This year we would like to display the choir, combined band, the cheerleaders, everybody. More or less, show the community that these schools work together and can support the academics and extracurricular activities.”

The pregame show will feature bands for Vicksburg High and Warren Central, along with a 50-member madrigal choir from both schools.

At the same time, players from all four of the participating football teams, band members from Pearl and Brandon, and assorted cheerleaders and dancers will be on the field.

The band performances will be followed by the coin toss officiated by Gene Allen and Billy Brewer — who coached Cooper High and Columbus Lee, respectively, in the inaugural 1962 Red Carpet Bowl — and the national anthem will be sung by Miss Mississippi 1962 Charlotte Ann Carroll.

Allen and Brewer will enter Viking Stadium in a Humvee.

At the conclusion of the national anthem, at 5:57 p.m., weather permitting, three vintage World War II aircraft will fly over Viking Stadium.

Warren Central band director Alan Arendale, who drew up the show’s choreography with Vicksburg band director Lee Winters and Nancy Robertson, the Vicksburg Warren School District’s director of fine arts, said getting two large marching bands on the same note will be the hardest part of the performance.

The Warren Central and Vicksburg bands had a dress rehearsal Thursday afternoon at Viking Stadium. Although they had each walked through the pregame show separately, it was the first time they practiced together.

“We have done a lot of things that are complicated and rely on a lot of different people. Having two bands on the field at the same time is a rarity. That’s not something that’s easily done,” Arendale said. “It’s going to be interesting with the bands that we have. The kids know they have one shot, and they’re going to put it together.”

At 6 p.m., Vicksburg and Pearl will kick off the 2012 high school football season. The teams will use a football with the Red Carpet Bowl logo for the opening kickoff, which will then be removed from the game and made part of this year’s trophy awarded to the winning team.

Another game ball with the RCB logo will be used for the kickoff of the WC-Brandon game and presented to that contest’s winner.

The festivities surrounding the Red Carpet Bowl’s 50th anniversary are extending beyond today. There was a banquet honoring the 1962 Cooper and Columbus Lee teams Thursday night, and they’ll have another reception Saturday. The teams will also be recognized at halftime of the Vicksburg-Pearl game tonight.

Vance said nearly every living player and coach, along with their families, are expected to attend the two reunion banquets.

“I did not realize Columbus and Vicksburg were going to turn out the way they did,” said Vance, who played for Cooper in the first Red Carpet Bowl. “People are coming from North Carolina, South Carolina, Florida, Georgia, all over the state of Louisiana, Texas, Oklahoma. The farthest one is from Chicago. These are some folks that are putting some effort into getting here.”