The 2024 Mariachi Extravaganza Competition concluded on Saturday without the Roma ISD Mariachi Program participating in the group competition, despite winning last year’s event.

On Friday, the Roma ISD Mariachi Program announced they were not competing in this year’s competition “due to an unfortunate situation that occurred at last year’s event.”

The post did not say what the incident was.

“Instead, we will focus our efforts on other competitions and projects, including the unveiling of our star on the Las Vegas Walk of Stars this spring,” the program stated in a Facebook post. “This decision reflects our commitment to providing our students with opportunities that promote growth and success in environments grounded in fairness, respect, and integrity—values essential to mariachi education and competitions.”

The group was recently featured in the “Going Varsity in Mariachi” Netflix documentary.

Channel 5 News reached out to Mariachi Extravaganza Producer Cynthia Muñoz, who said the “unfortunate incident” stemmed from Roma ISD being briefly disqualified from the competition last year after their performance.

According to Muñoz, judges ruled that Roma ISD’s performance featured a “popurri,” or a medley of songs, which is against contest rules.

Muñoz said that one of the judge’s informed a Roma ISD mariachi student of the disqualification instead of letting the program director know of it.

“I think they were unhappy with the way the whole decision was made last year,” Muñoz said, adding that judge’s reviewed the performance again and reversed the disqualification. Roma ISD ended up winning the competition following the reversal.

The incident led to the Mariachi Extravaganza lifting the rule against popurri performances this year.

“That rule we had, we realized it was outdated so we lifted it,” Muñoz said. “We’re sad that [Roma ISD] did not participate this year. Even though they won the competition, and they accepted the award and performed onstage, they were disappointed in the way it was all decided.”

According to Muñoz, other schools in the Rio Grande Valley competed in the Mariachi Extravaganza.

Rio Grande City High School Mariachi Cascabel and Grulla High School Mariachi Grulla de Plata have both tied for 1st Place in the High School Category at the Mariachi Extravaganza National Competition, according to Rio Grande City Grulla ISD.

Roma High School mariachi program student Lorraine Garza was named grand champion in the 30th Annual Mariachi Extravaganza National Vocal Competition.