Once Boyle told the KYPPA it wouldn't be able to work something out, the competition went to Danville.
Knight said Danville has hosted its own Danville Invitational Band Contest for 25 years without any problems with the field. Although that contest hasn't been held in awhile, Knight said boosters aren't worried about hosting the October event.
"It'll probably be bigger than all of our other fund-raisers put together," he said.
The fund-raising side of the competition is also what drew Boyle to the competition. Boyle Band Booster Co-President Bill Summers said the band's biggest source of money comes from football concessions. Last year there were a couple of big playoff games and the Danville game played at the Boyle Rebels' stadium. This year there aren't as many big crowd-drawing games, Summers said, and so the band face a slow concessions year.
The band also holds car washes, sells fruit around the holidays, and has a chicken day at Lee's Famous Recipe - that's where the band delivers chicken lunches and the restaurant shares its profits from the day's sales.
But, none of the events would have compared with hosting a band competition. Summers says all of the groups in town constantly hit up the same people and businesses for help, and he thought the competition would be a way to bring in money from outside the community.
Boyle band hoping for financial help from board
Facing shortfalls, Summers hopes the Boyle Board of Education will step in to help fund the band. The boosters pay for several assistants for the band. There are part-time people to work with the percussion section, the marching routine and the color guard.
The boosters also pay for instruments for the elementary and middle schools.
"There is a lot of growth in the music program at Wood-lawn (Elementary), and we trying to find ways to pay for that," he said. "We are excited that there are so many young people now that want to learn how to play an instrument."
Summers isn't optimistic about Boyle's chances of hosting the competition next year.
"Given the amount of opposition we have received from the other booster groups in the high school, our officers are skeptical that opposition would go away next year."
Summers hopes the band will still have the same arrangement for its use of the field as it had last year. Once a week, the band gets to practice on the field for 45 minutes.
"It's a very limited time, and it's a very important time," he said.
The practice time on the field, with the grass and the field markings, helps the students get used to the turns and visual references.
"We hope to continue that limited use ... it's not ideal, but it's necessary."
