Once every year, the whole student body is united in excitement and anticipation for Homecoming. People come together to practice for quad days, set up decorations, and write skits and roasts on the other classes. Overall, school spirit runs high.

It should be a perfect event, boosting morale and spicing up the long stretch between Labor Day and the October break. However, one glaring problem mars Homecoming. Every year, the audience is forced to smolder under the midday sun while the dancers look about ready to collapse from the heat.

The problem is twofold. First, the heat makes even sitting for half an hour unbearable, not to mention performing dances in full costume. Second, the glare reduces visibility and makes it difficult to take videos or photos without exploiting strange angles and reduced exposures.

Furthermore, the canopies that had been set up have failed to accomplish anything. The shade that they do manage to provide doesn’t even completely cover all the seats that they’re meant to, leaving spectators underneath still boiling in the blazing sun. The bleachers, meanwhile, aren’t even covered, and sitting on hot metal isn’t fun for anyone.

Another issue is that performances frequently end right as lunch ends. Performers don’t have enough time to buy lunch after performances, and students will need to sacrifice buying lunches for sweltering hot seats on the bleachers.
There are many possible solutions to this problem.

The most obvious is to invest in better canopies. Making them a little larger and a little thicker would at the very least reduce the glare for some of the seats. By investing in taller canopies, the school could make sure the bleachers could be covered too.

A slightly more extreme solution would be to change the time of the Homecoming performances. With a few schedule changes (maybe during tutorial), the heat would not be quite as extreme. This would also free up lunchtime for students who want to go off and allow performers to get lunch. 

Students would be more willing to spend 30 more minutes in school in exchange for being able to watch the quad day performances without suffering a heatstroke. In any case, students would agree it would be better than how it is now.