UIL RULES CHANGES (maybe)

Things are changing... Deep In The Heart of Texas

Every December, the Rules Advisory Committee for UIL Marching Band meets to review the previous marching season. Someuate proposals for future rule changes. On Tuesday, the notes from the meeting were made public, including all of the proposals discussed. As it is just the first stage of the rules-changing process, there are 17 proposals (some contradictory) that will be discussed further at their Spring Meeting on May 10th before moving on to the voting process at a later date to be decided on at that same meeting. We separated the rules into four categories: rehearsal, judging, contest logistics, and finally, the ever-so-controversial electronics.

If you’re interested in taking a look at what the current systems and rules look like, the UIL has sheets and procedures available HERE.

Rehearsal Guidelines

There is only one proposal regarding rehearsal guidelines, and it is as follows:

12. Proposal to eliminate or expand the 10-hour limit on visual fundamentals prior to August 1

Marching band in Texas is notorious for having stringent restrictions on how much an ensemble can rehearse, one of the most well-known rules being unable to put drill on the field before August 1st. Most may not realize that there is also a limit on how much time can be spent on visual fundamentals. Many band directors want to direct more time toward teaching visual concepts before they start applying those concepts on August 1st. 

Judging

Onto the proposals involving judging, there are eight total, and we’ll go in order of what level of UIL competition they are relevant to.

Region

Starting at the Region level, we only have one proposal: 

8. Proposal to amend the penalty for exceeding the 8-minute clock at the region contest from lowered one rating to written reprimand

At every UIL Region contest, there are not only the three judges who give a numerical rating from 1-5, but also one on the field whose job is to make sure the bands are performing within the allotted 8-minute time slot after setup and before exit. Many would consider the penalty for going over time quite harsh, as even a single second drops your overall rating by an entire point, meaning a band that gets a 1 would no longer be able to advance to the Area level of competition. In recent years, we’ve seen this rule invoked fairly often with notable examples such as Allen (TX) in 2018, Roma (TX) in 2019, and most recently, last fall with the #23 Wakeland (TX). 

Area

At the Area level, we have quite a few proposals:

10. Proposal to utilize the 7-judge system at 5A/6A area contests

11. Proposal to reconfigure the 5-judge system resulting in a woodwind, brass, percussion, visual ensemble, and visual individual Judge

13. Proposal to advance all bands at an area contest with ordinal ties for the final advancement placement to the state contest

16. Proposal for the area/state judge training to be done by a UIL official or someone with no affiliation to a competing program

These proposals above are attempts to address the system’s flaws, whether it be inconsistencies in the sheets or the judging. Some have been considerably vocal about the quality of judging at the Area level of competition. The 7-judge system was introduced to reflect the growing complexity of evaluating bands as show design has grown more complex, and currently, the judging process changes at each level of UIL competition. 

Proposal 10 is intended to make the Area judging similar to State, taking into account more of the nuance present in each show as opposed to the traditional 3 Music and 2 Visual panels. This change would provide reads more similar to what the groups will face at the state competition; however, it also would require more judges per Area show, which is already a hot topic of debate within the Texas band community. In addition, many of the top judges in the state direct competitive programs in other classes, and many outside the state are judging other circuits, such as BOA, factors that limit their availability.

Proposal 11 would keep the 5-judge system at Area but make slight adaptations to reflect the 7-judge sheets. For example, it would break the 3 Music captions down into one judge for each aspect of the musical ensemble and the 2 Visual captions into an Ensemble and a Visual judge. 

For Proposal 13, this change would mean that if there were a tie for the last advancement spot in their Area, all groups that tie would advance to the State Competition. Currently, the system breaks ties on Judge's Preference (the group with the most judges higher than the other), and the band that wins the tie advances to State, but the loser does not. Bands affected by the tiebreaker this year included two Grand National Finalists in Prosper (TX) and Southlake Carroll (TX).

McKinney Boyd advanced to State over Prosper, despite tying in ordinals.

Proposal 16 applies to the Area and State level contests (but not Region) and calls for the judges to receive training from either UIL or a designated third party to avoid bias in the judging. This is the logical next step to one of the more recent rule changes UIL implemented, stipulating that UIL must pick the judges for the Area contests instead of the individual Areas picking their own.

State

Finally, for the State level of competition, we have three proposals regarding judging:

7. Proposal to prohibit duplication of any judges from state prelims to state finals in the 5-judge system

15. Proposal to move the percussion judge to the press box OR eliminate “effective use of electronics (when present)” and “coordination of all performing elements” from the adjudication criteria

17. Proposal to modify the point structure on the brass, woodwind, and percussion judge sheets in the 7-judge system. 

Proposal 7 is relatively straightforward, stating that none of the judges at the 3A and below State contests, where the 5-panel system is still used, should be able to judge both prelims and finals.

Next up is Proposal 15, which is probably the most contentious out of the judging proposals, and it partially overlaps with our final category (electronics). 

A notable percussion director in the state had this to say regarding this proposal:

“The UIL percussion judge needs to be on the field. Not up in the box. Electronics can be evaluated by the music ensemble judge and needs to be put on that sheet and NOT be on the percussion sheet… When people want the drum judge to be upstairs, it tells us that they want to ‘hide’ their battery members. Hide them behind the front ensemble, winds, and electronics. Making the integrity of battery vocabulary and player to player connection WAY less important… If we move the drum judge upstairs, we will then take out every flam, drag, and every challenging rudiment.”

An alternative introduced in the proposal would be removing aspects of the current rubric that are hard to adjudicate from the field, such as electronics, as the speakers are intended to translate to the box, and therefore, judges on the field level cannot interpret how they balance and blend with the ensemble. 

The last of the judging proposals is number 17, which calls for reweighting the ordinals in the 7-panel system. As it stands right now, every single caption has the same weight, whether it’s Percussion, Content & Design, Visual Ensemble, etc., but some believe that specific captions should have more of an impact on the final score. How this would be done is yet to be seen, but we expect that to be covered in the May meeting. 

Contest Logistics

The next category of proposals is contest logistics, which are as follows:

1. Proposal to change the clock structure to 4 minutes/9 minutes/2 minutes

2. Proposal for front ensembles to be permitted to pre-stage during the prior band’s setup

3. Proposal for bands to be permitted to pre-stage during the three minutes prior to their field entry

4. Proposal for Competition Suite to be used at region contests

5. Proposal to hold top half/bottom half pre-draw for area finals

6. Proposal to draw for and schedule state prelims based on area results

Timing

Proposal 1 calls for a reallocation of field time to 4 minutes for setup/pre-show, 9 minutes for performance, and 2 minutes to clear the field. As it is now, there are only 8 minutes allowed for judged performance and 5 minutes before for setup and pre-show, so this change would enable bands who design around BOA (which has a more liberal time allowance for performance) to perform more of their show instead of either having to skip a movement or start the show much earlier as to stay within the strict limits. This goes hand-in-hand with the proposal to change the penalty for going over time when it comes to giving programs more flexibility regarding performance time.

Staging

The following two Proposals, 2 and 3, are about pre-staging parts of the ensemble and are likely intended to assist bands in the shorter setup period proposed above. Proposal 2 would allow the front ensemble to pre-stage while the ensemble before them is setting up, which means they wouldn’t have to travel as far once their setup time begins while also getting all of the instruments in performance order. Proposal 3 is similar, except it applies to the rest of the ensemble, and they would still have to wait to pre-stage until the last 3 minutes of the previous ensemble’s time block. They would not enter the field at this time but would be able to get much closer to assist them in a quicker setup once their own time starts.

Results

Proposal 4 is very straightforward, requiring UIL Region Contests to post results to Competition Suite. This may seem small, but there is no unified system for score reporting at this level of competition, as the UIL website does not post the results as they do with Area and State. As of now, results are primarily posted to the Texas Music Forms, but results from some contests may take longer to be published as there is no obligation for Regions to report their results to them. Some Regions may post results to their websites, but most do not and rely on TMF to make them public. 

Performance Order

Moving down to Proposal 5, there is a call to implement the top half/bottom half split for Area Finals. As it currently stands, how the Area handles the pre-draw for Finals is up to them entirely, so some areas already practice this method while others do not. This proposal would normalize it across all Areas.

Proposal 6 would change how the draw order for the State contests be held, basing the order on not only random draw but also the results at Area. One significant concern around this proposal is that it would punish bands from Areas with more competitive depth, with bands who may get the 5th or 6th State spots still being contenders for Finals at State. 

Electronics

Finally, we are on to our last two proposals dealing with electronics, and they are as follows:

9. Proposal to allow amplification of ensembles of any size using open microphones

14. Proposal to allow a non-student to operate the sound board during the 8-minute clock

The proposal that is most likely to ruffle the most feathers on this entire list is Proposal 9, which essentially calls for removing any amplification limits on ensembles. Previous attempts at addressing this concern have been difficult to enforce because of the nature of the activity. One of the first attempts at limiting amplification was only allowing amplification for “small ensembles,” which some programs quickly took advantage of as virtually anything that wasn’t all or a majority of the ensemble could be considered “small.” Attempts to set numerical limits on what is considered “small” are similarly arbitrary as just adding a single instrument to the maximum size for a “small ensemble” would result in penalization. Many have concluded that, given the nature of the activity, trying to limit amplification causes more issues than it fixes, leading to them requesting the removal of these restrictions.

And finally, the 17th and final proposal, number 14, is another removal of a limitation involving electronics. The rules currently state that only a student can operate the sound board during the 8 minutes of performance. Due to the complexity and unpredictability of the sound systems, not having a professional to deal with unexpected outages and other issues can be detrimental to the performance, so educators are requesting that they be able to assist the student in these scenarios to help avoid these situations.

There will be further discussion and refinement of these ideas at their Spring Meeting on May 10th of this year, where the fates of these proposals will be further explored.

Aaron Blackley is one of the original contributors for General Effect Media. Despite being young and fresh out of college, he has a vast knowledge and passion for the marching arts and has worked alongside the likes of HornRank as a ranker and moderator as well as the TxBands.com liveblog team since summer 2021. He can be found on Twitter as @GEMAaronB.

Matthew Carstensen is currently GEM’s Managing Editor. He has been involved in the Pageantry Arts for over a decade, as a performer at the highest level, an instructor, and a fan. You can find him on Twitter at @SatNightLites. He currently lives in Florida with his partner and their two dogs.