Junior and color guard member Jill Elton did not think the marching band would have to fight to get practice space in the wake of the construction that Chapel Hill High School this year.
“We didn’t know what was going to happen this year as far as the construction,” Elton said. “We thought we would be given a space to practice, but we weren’t.”
Construction at Chapel Hill High School has impacted many sports teams due to interference with practice fields and has also forced the marching band to seek alternative practice spaces during its 2018-19 season.
The marching band season ended November 3 with Cary Band Day at Cary High School. Throughout the season, the band practiced on the parking lot next to the C-building in the afternoon.
The band often had to wait until after all cars left the lot, delaying practices.
“The cars in the parking lot won’t leave, even though we’ve told them millions of times they need to exit before 4:30 p.m.,” senior Thea Zava, an alto-saxophone player, said. “We can never get to practice soon enough. It really [cut into] our time.”
Principal Charles Blanchard made announcements on several afternoons during the season reminding drivers the lot needed to be cleared for marching band practice.
In the past, marching band practiced on field to be better prepared for performances at football games. Practicing on pavement was much harder, said sophomore Milo Vaisey, who joined the marching band this year.
“Marching on grass is definitely way easier,” Vaisey, a trombone player, said, “and I imagine you don’t have to wait for cars to leave before you can start marching [on grass].”
Setting up the practice space at the beginning of the season proved to be a challenge for band members as well.
“Originally, we had a lot of complications with drawing the yard lines on the parking lot, since it’s all weirdly curved, and that causes issues when we go to perform,” Elton said.
Zava also felt that the inadequate practice space negatively impacted the band’s performance at games and competitions during the fall season.
“At the competitions, the fields are bigger, so we do pretty badly because we don’t get to march on real fields before we go,” she said.
The band finished 11 out of 39 bands at the 2018 Cary Band Day competition.
