Sulphur Springs High School’s Multipurpose Building will be the site of the UIL Regional Band Contest on Tuesday (October 16). The event was moved from Mount Plesant due to concerns about inclement weather. The Wildcats will perform at 8:15 a.m. Wildcats’ Marching Band Director Spencer Emmert calls this year the year of the gully washer with almost constant rain recently.
Out of all the football game Friday nights and contests, the Wildcats’ band has only had one occasion when they were not rained on. Emmert says everyone is having to deal with it. He says the Wildcats contest last Saturday (October 13) at Mount Pleasant was canceled due to the weather. After Saturday’s cancellation, Emmert says the band had a great rehearsal inside the multipurpose building and got better. He says when he was at Winnsboro three years ago, bands had to move an Area UIL Contest to a multipurpose building in Carthage.
Emmert says there are some issues with playing indoors such as reverberation or echoing. However a band may benefit from resonance, which can actually make them sound better. Emmert says judges end up right on top of you in an indoor facility. He says judges are used to being up in stands where they can observe a band as a collective ensemble. Emmert says indoors and close, judges have to focus on individual members, making their performance more important.
One benefit to an indoor site is that the Wildcats Band will be able to utilize its’ grid tarp, considered a key part of the band’s show and concept. They have only been able to use it once. That was at the first home game at Prim Stadium. 
