AMARILLO, TEXAS -- 16 area high school bands are practicing for this weekend's High Plains Marching Festival. The festival gives local schools a chance to practice before UIL competition. One of those schools is Caprock. They tell Pronews 7 they have a lot to gain from getting high scores and hoping practice makes perfect.

"Once school starts, we have class everyday. We have a two hour rehearsal at night, we rehearse before football games and before competitions. The kids also have after school practices that they do, they also come work individually with the directors,"said Derek Harris, Head Band Director at Caprock High School.

Students say the High Plains Marching Festival gives them the chance to show off that hard work and try to earn respect from fellow schools. Caprock says it has more to prove since it's band is smaller than most. "Other bands like have 250 students, we only have 60, so it's like even harder on us cause we don't have enough people to have like flag girls or anything so everything is focused on our marching,"said Mari Esqupar, band drum major.

One thing all band members are asking from you, is a strong show of support. "We practice for hours and we just really want people to come and help us out. I mean there's a lot of people going to the football games, so we're just hoping they will come and support us too," adds Esqupar.

If you do want to show your support, the marching festival kicks off at 10:00 am at Dick Bivins Stadium Saturday, October 9th. The event will last all day with a special appearance at 4:00pm from West Texas A&M's marching band.