Each band has a scheduled time slot. We have 15 minutes to get on, perform, and get off. That provides some flexibility as to how much of that time is actually performing time. Some bands used to try to play 13 minutes of music. Most bands these days opt for less than 10 minutes of music: to give more time to enter and exit the field, and to have less material to learn and clean. In some competitive circuits, there may be a minimum performing time (don’t know if there is one for ABODA). These timing rules are enforced in the performing venue, by Timing and Penalty officials.
As we enter a stadium to perform, we are guided as to where the ‘starting line’ is. We will hold there until the previous band has started to leave the field. Usually, at that time, we can cross the starting line to begin setup, but have not actually started into our time slot. Stepping across the starting line while the other band is still performing will earn us a penalty. In the transitional setup time, anyone stepping ON the actual football field will trigger our time-clock to start prematurely, so students, pit crew, and prop crew need to be careful during that set-up time. When we are finished performing, we need to get all people, instruments, and props off the field before our time slot expires, or we will receive a numerical penalty. This is not as bad as it seems, because our actual performance is, wisely, not very long. If timing is running tight for some reason, the students and crew may be told to get off as quickly as possible. In this case, they might go directly to the closest sideline or end-zone to try to get all feet and parts off the actual football field. In some venues, the penalty line may be actually off the side the of the field, so we need to get off the football field, but also off to one side of the stadium.
Timing penalties are deducted from the final tabulated score, and can make huge differences in Ratings and Rankings.