WBCA says meeting is mandatory: You must atttend or else!

Hear Ye, Hear Ye, All Must Attend, No Exceptions!!

In yesterday's edition of The Laredo Sun, appeared a story with a rather surreal title : WBCA announces mandatory parade meeting.  In one fell swoop, the atmosphere changed from festive to authoritarian. Further, the article indicated as follows:

The Washington’s Birthday Celebration Association (WBCA) Parade Committees announced all participants of the 2011 IBC Youth Parade Under the Stars and the Anheuser-Busch Washington’s Birthday Parade are required to attend a mandatory parade meeting Thursday, Jan. 13, 2011 at 6 p.m.

No one move a muscle.! Please read carefully.  WBCA is requiring All Participants to attend. Naturally, my immediate concern was "These poor people don't have a choice". They must go, it's a requirement.  Next, since the order applies to ALL participants . So, just how are they going to be able to squeeze the thousands of participants for such a large-scale mandatory meeting? " Luckily, the next paragraph explained it: 

The mandatory orientation meeting will be held at the Laredo Civic Center, meeting rooms 1, 2 and 3. Entry numbers, maps and other important information will be distributed at this meeting

Ok, I'm glad to see they're reserving 3 rooms for the thousands of indentured participants. That should work out roughly to about, oh maybe 10,000 per room?  And what are the consequences for not attending? As we all know, any time someone misses a mandatory meeting, there are consequences. Hopefully, the ruling Junta of the WBCA will realize that these are mostly kids tparticipating in the parades and perhaps they'll have some mercy.