For musically inclined students at St. Edward’s University, the time has come to get your band together, tune up and get ready for battle—battle of the bands that is.

The event, planned for March 28 at 7 p.m. in the Mabee Ballroom, will be the first of its kind. Eight bands will compete to win the grand prize—10 hours of recording time with a professional sound engineer at The Recording Conservatory of Austin, plus the opening slot at the spring concert in April.

“This will be the most difficult event I have planned,” said junior Alex Simons, the University Programming Board’s primary coordinator for the event.

Having planned a number of successful events on campus, including The Mates of State and Givers concerts as well as the karaoke nights, Simons believes this event in particular will serve as a creative outlet for musically talented students.

Many of the details for the marketing and execution of the event are still in the works. Some ideas that have been thrown out include a texting system that students can use during the concert to vote for bands and guerilla marketing strategies like surprise acoustic sets from participating bands to promote the show.

Simons plans for the winning band to be chosen by a panel of judges, along with a fan’s favorite vote at the end. One judge will be Rocky Tran, an alumnus of The Recording Conservatory who now owns a studio called Rockeasy Sound Productions in Austin. The other judges will be finalized closer to the event.

One band competing will be Lost Catz, made up of Jonathan Cantu, Jessica Buie and Manuel Cordina.

“We sound really like a dreamy, lo-fi, garage band with too much reverb,” Cantu said. “Together, our inspirations make for a unique sound.”

Although hoping to win the prize, the band admits that they have more reasons for wanting to compete.

“We registered for the battle because we don’t really know any of the other on campus bands and thought it would be a good opportunity to show ourselves off and meet some other people in the process,” Buie said.

The band is looking forward to performing on campus.

“I don’t know what exactly to expect, but I do know that we’ll have a good amount of energy going into this,” Cantu said. “We just want to show people how we jam and hope that they like what they hear.”

As of press time, only three bands have signed up. Up to eight bands will face off at the final event. If more than eight sign up, students can vote on Collegiate Link for who they would like to see perform.

The deadline for registration is Monday, Feb. 28 at 5 p.m. To be eligible. at least half of the band must be enrolled at St. Edward’s. To register, sign up on the UPB page on Collegiate Link.