What is WGI?
For the few reading that may not be familiar with Winter Guard International, the way I normally explain it is that its modern marching band but indoors, and only certain sections of the band competing at once. There are 3 general categories: color guard, percussion, and winds. I spent my time in the marching arts as a drummmer, and thus I am most familiar with the percussion category and my writing is influenced likewise. As a performer, WGI Percussion became something truly special to me, as it has for many others.
A Weekend of Drums
Similar to marching band and drum corps, groups practice, rehearse, and compete over the course of a season spanning several months. For WGI, groups tend to start practice in late September/early October with rehearsals becoming more regular in late November. Competition season usually kicks off in late January. The culmination of everyone’s hard work occurs over two weekends in April when thousands of performers make the pilgrimage to Dayton, Ohio for the final competition of the season. While not usually thought of as a desitination city, for those 2 weekends in April it becomes a mecca of the marching arts. Percussion usually competes the weekend of April 20th and gets the Thursday through Saturday night all to themselves.
An Event With No Peer
While I am not privy to the true number of performers and its difficult to estimate to the variance in group size, I will do my best. Assuming an average group size of 30 members (12 battery, 18 front ensemble) and 25 groups per category in the A, Open, and World classes, there is somewhere around 4500 performers showcasing their talents that weekend. My estimation could be refined further to include concert ensembles among a multitude of improvements, and might err a bit high, but I think my point is clear: No other event has the sheer number of percussionists in one spot, all performing to the top of their abilities. PASIC wins by the numbers, but the convention format isn’t quite the same as a weekend of non-stop performances.
As an aside, calling it the most important event for drummers would be innaccurate and non-inclusive since it only covers one hyper-specialized style of drumming derived from American military culture and would completely exclude even other marching cultures like the stytles seen at historically Black colleges in the US, let alone anything that isn’t purely rudimental. However, those are topics for another day.
What does a show look like?
Shows are generally themed and can tell a direct story, or be rather abstract. Rather than try to explain sites and sounds, I’ll provide an example of a show I adore.
While the show is abstract, I love how all of the voices available, including the vocal samples, seem to be used primarily to convey emotion rather than an event-to-event story. The final full-ensemble moment with the most intense vocals of the show give me goosebumps every time I listen to it.
WOW - A Summary of my Thoughts About the 2026 Season
At the end of most seasons, I’m left in total awe. This season was no different. I’ve been a fan of the activity since roughly 2014 (not that long in the grand scheme of things), and I don’t think I’ve seen a year with standards of competition this high. It gets easier to say that as the years pass and my ears become less attuned to the minute detail, not to mention I’m not watching in person, but I doubt I’m far off the mark. Generally the field improves as a whole year over year; that’s how continunous buildup of experience and education works in any group activity. However, the visual and auditory clarity was insane across the board. I’d like to cover some of my favorite shows, moments, and generally things I liked (and some I didn’t). For clarification, I will only be talking about World Class, as that’s all I could watch during my work days and on finals night.
Let Me Post on Drum Corps Planet Real Quick
Pulse
To get this out of my system as quick as possible, I have to start with Pulse. I didn’t like their show this year. I had seen tons of clips of their snare feature all over social media leading up to finals, and the creativty and pure energy it had made me very excited to see the full show. However, I was left pretty dissapointed. From a technical standpoint, it was great. It had the high level of performance come to be expected from Pulse, and overall the show was cohesive. But to be frank, I thought it was boring. There was nothing flawed about the show, it just didn’t take any noticable risks. It didn’t help they had used music from Son Lux in the 2018 season in a decently similar manner, and that the show also had bright white/silver-ish uniforms with an earthy orange accent. It’s not lost on me that the show’s theme is partly being shaped by the past, and its not uncommon for ensembles to do throwback shows, but this one felt a little too shaped by the past.
Infinity 2
I2 tried to take of inpsiration from cyberpunk aesthetics and themes to do some commentary about the state of the world today. And while I could get behind what they were attempting, I think they failed miserably. Attempting to criticize our dependence and total consumption by technology is valid. Doing so while using some stock photo of a street with neon signs, complete with some google fonts (Noto Sans? Felippa? Am I reading this right?) and the generic “retrowave” tag plastered on a noodle shop of all things, is not. Arcades? Are we being for real? Those barely survive today because everyone is playing games on those cellphones you stuck in your performer’s faces! Was this backdrop AI-generated?
It would’ve been so easy to get closer to right too. All that was needed was some font TLC and fake ads on the buildings; your own logo, sponsors, whatever so long as its dense and over the top to try and get people’s attention of those damn phones! Take some inspiration from the corporate logos plastered all over the back of the performance area; the company going ultra-capitalist monopoly on streaming niche events poorly knows they need their logo on there to try and muster some good faith. Hell, even the marines know that’s prime real estate to accomplish the very thing you’re attempting to critique.
Did I mention the cellphones? Another thing that bothered me was that they got on the right track by relating smartphone usage to over consumption, but they never tried to ask why that was the case. Its not even all that difficult; shortened attention spans and a constant bombardment of advertisements erodes people’s brains. They could’ve easily worked in a section of disjointed but vaguely related licks to sell the show theme while still appeasing the score sheets. Instead, they went with a show that demands the full attention of the viewer of the course of the 6.5ish minutes they get to perform, which is entirely antithetical to the point they are trying to make. As a result, the show came off like a parent telling you to get off your phone without being able to provide any reasons why you shouldn’t be on your phone as much as you are, all the while you’re watching them fall into the same trap. Ugh.
On a way higher note, watching a group getting promoted to the next class is always exciting. Watching them grow within the class is even more exciting. Making world class finals alongside OG Infinity is truly spectacular! There’s no better testament to the level of education the group provides, and the level the performers in the region have been able to achieve. While I clearly did not enjoy the show thematically, I do think they played at a very high level and was extremely excited to see that. Despite my ramblings to the void, I think Infinity 2 should be very proud of what they were able to accomplish this year, and should be excited for the future of the ensemble as it continues to grow.
Flo Marching
In theory, trying to provide sustainable streaming services for fans of smaller activities is a good thing. I’m more than willing to pay half the cost of single-night ticket to watch all 3 of a finals event. As a cost model, it makes perfect sense for an organization to stream the show to fans at a reduced rate as it only gets more eyes on the activity overall, and keeps some of the older ones engaged without having to pay for travel, thus encouraging that activity to grow.
In practice, flo sports is a joke. They haven’t had one major event without a streaming issue since they added the marching arts to their list of properties in their monopoly. This year’s WGI finals was no different, with the stream ending abruptly before Atlanta Quest’s performance. In their app, it looked as if it was planned for the stream to end as the schedule reflected the event ending around 9PM eastern. Did no one notice that and try to fix it before it actually became a problem?
When they finally got the stream back up during Matrix’s performance, the stream was cooked. It seemed like the audio was without any balance at all, and the visual just wasn’t there. Sure, sounds like they might’ve had some technical issues. But how many times can you stream the same event at the same venue to a similar amount of people using the same tech stack before technical issues become entirely unacceptable?
The Things I Liked
There was so much I did like from this year. I took some notes while I watched prelims, and I tried my best to revisit everything before commiting my thoughts to the public. Through that, I learned that trying to take notes while getting a first read on the show is tough. It’s incredible the judges are able to remember so many groups at varying skill levels to give feedback at the end of the night.
Kaizen
I had never heard of the group before, and they sounded pretty good on the stream. Their show design seemed to have a blend of Pulse and Broken City design language, which I enjoyed. I look forward to seeing them again in the future. Also, I gotta mention the name. Whereas I do appreciate the sentiment of the name, it did freak me out a bit since we’re real big on Lean at work. Gave me a little bit of the corporate frights when I heard them announced.
MBI
I appreciated the front ensemble/snare moment toward the middle of the show. The marimba featurette at the start of the moment was pretty, and I enjoyed the interplay between the stick and brush timbres in the snare drums, and how both of those ideas tried to play off each other. Visually, the moment was quite nice too. I like how the snares cascaded off the props and that the larger group moved with that cascade for the most part. However, I do wish the group had moved with the snares a tad bit longer to really emphasize the movement before splitting the floor.
United
I tend to be as bit biased cheering for United since they’re the world class group in the north east at the moment. Several of my friends marched there at one point, and one of my friends even teaches UP2 now, and I couldn’t be happier for him and the success he’s finding. That said, I always find their shows sit in a weird space for me. With most of my marching arts education coming from the east coast, I associate the insanely straight posture (with a slight tilt back), super stiff arms on the move, tight fullcrum look with pure, but controlled, aggression throughout a show. When the look is there, but the agression isn’t, its like a wire doesn’t connect in my brain and what I’m seeing doesn’t compute. I don’t have anything profound to say about their show this year, but I was finally able to put to words why I feel the way I do about them when I was watching.
STRYKE
I adored the props; I’m a sucker for super bold contrast, and they absolutely nailed it. They utilized the props pretty well too; they sectioned off the floor nicely. Aside from the visual, I really enjoyed the shorter, softer bass and snare moments about halfway through the show. Soft floppies? Mhm, you talk your stuff. Also, having the coupled performers exit the show area directly into the tunnel is always a classic.
Rhythmic Force
Great show overall. The mannequin props with the camera heads would prolly freak me out a little in person, and they grounded the theme of the show pretty well. The other props did the same, and I liked how they shaped the floor. The group played pretty well too. The bass feature on the amplified pads with tubes was great, and a neat timbre to shake things up. I thought the amplification had an unintended positive effect on the sound of the things too; they were boomy in the arena, in a good way. The snare/bass feature later on was cool, though I’m not a huge fan of snare splits in general. I liked how they drew on the source material and how they put the single snare drummer outside of the props looking at a mirror to end the show.
Dark Sky
I’ve been a fan of the Dark Sky style for a while. I saw their jackets once 10 years ago and was like “wow those look cool, I’m gonna have unrealistic expectation for this group till the end of time.” I liked their show quite a bit this year. Might be some high camera help going on, but I thought the black and yellow floor popped well and had almost a 3D effect, definitely aided by the fence props. The snares had a lot of flam vocabularly going on this year which I’m always a fan of. The entire group played a ton of odd tuplets, which usually give a neat effect to the show but can get a little repetitive when overdone. Overall though, it was my favorite Dark Sky show in the years since WGI returned.
Broken City
Generally speaking, Broken City is my favorite group. They started when I was in high school and brought with them a take on the activity that I hadn’t heard before. Roger Carter has taken inspiration from progressive metal bands like Meshuggah for a while (see Vortex layered with the song “Beneath”). This year was no different. I loved the Meshuggah/OG Periphery-esque jam part in the middle; it captured the 0-0-0-0-0-0-0 spirt insanely well. It ended with an atmospheric guitar phrase that sounded extremely close to one of the motifs in Invent Animate’s album Heavner, which happens to be one of my albums of all time. Not sure if that was intentional or not, but it perked my ears up as soon as I heard it.
Atlanta Quest
To me, AQ has always been the best at incorporating pop music into their shows without making the moment or the whole show seem corny. They held to that pattern this year. The Britney Spears sample played over the snare feature had me losing my mind the first time I heard it. Despite the overall effect wearing off over the weekend, it was still enough to cement it as my favorite snare solo of the year. I also loved the timpani solo; I thought it was well written, and the performer sold it incredibly well.
I have to mention the Kanye use. I get the song is popular and people still really love it, but I simply cannot seperate Kanye from the tweets where he calls himself a nazi and the t-shirts he sold with swastikas on them. There’s talk about his mental health and whether he was fully sane when he did that stuff, but I still wouldn’t touch his music with a 10’ pole in an activity where participation is capped at 22.
George Mason
Sequel shows aren’t a new thing, but I don’t think I’ve liked them nearly as much as I did with The Masons. When I saw George Mason character stroll onto the floor for prelims, I was a bit worried that it would be another simple parody show. And while it was in many ways, GMU proved that there was still plenty to parody and plenty more to the show as well. I liked the recongnizable Bluecoats licks, and they did a pretty ruff job of poking fun at Broken City. The one that really got to me was the Cadets Classic to end the show. The whole moment was well done; the sustained tones layered with aggresive drums, the run-and-gun tempo, and the tight drill forms were the perfect nod to the Cadets style. The moment managed to do the perfect callback, but remained well written an appealing without needing to know what they were doing. Wonderful stuff.
I loved the mix of The Simpons with the overall theme of assembling a drum line show on the fly. As its continued to run over the years, many have criticized The Simpons for being stale and repetitive, as if its now made out of obligation rather than love. Weaving that throughout the fast assembly of a drum line show with heavily-inspired/directly-quoted licks was perfect. It highlighted that many of the top designers continue to write the same style over the years, as if developing their own formulas they continually get rewarded for, akin to The Simpsons continuing to win television awards without changing its formula.
Infinity
I loved Infinity’s show this year. The past few years, I felt the inspiration they’ve taken from Broken City in their approach to drumming, the cold attacks, and the spacy, yet funky, rhythms didn’t feel authentic to the group in my opinion. This year, it felt like they were able to incorporate that influence into something that felt more like their own style. I adored their music; I thought it was intriguing throughtout the entire show. At first I was a bit worried because whenever I hear something super academic, like 8 on Three and 9 on Two, I have a pre-conceived notion that whatever I’m about to sit through is going to be technically challenging but have no purpose beyond that. I am happy to say that I was proven wrong this time. The style of 8 on Three was used to set the air of the show, and it was incredibly well done. They kept the vibe of the beginning going throughout most of the show well without overdoing it. I felt like they really utilized the front ensemble well too. Not only did they drive tonal aspects; they layered in textures to add to the overall vibe, like bowing the vibraphones, using the singing bowls, double strokes on the same notes on the marima, etc. The show was also very snare-focused, which I did enjoy. Those guys were cooking! As is a common theme, I also adored their vocal samples and how they layered into the show.
The visual element of Infinity’s show was incredibly striking to me. It’s the only show that managed to stick in my head as much as Rhythm X did. Technically it was really simple; a blue floor with white uniforms. However, the meld of the tones in the gradient on the floor was super neat, and somehow the creases only added to it. The white and silver were nice compliments to it. The elements are similar to the themeing one of my favorite bands uses, which elevated it for me personally. Might be a little out there, but the style made me think of bubbles, and the growing cyber surrealism movement I’ve been seeing online. I can’t shake that thought, but I’m not sure how to articulate it since I’m not versed in visual art and its many styles. It definitely resonated with me.
The End
I didn’t think there was any way Rhythm X could top their show from last year, but they managed to do it. As with many groups, I saw clips of them warming up in the lot throughout the season, and I was beyond impressed from the first time I saw them. The entire ensemble played together with a level of balance from player to player, section to section, and from front to back that I’m not sure I’ve seen before. And if I have, its been a very long time. From the music to the full mint color scheme and beyond, the entire show was stunning.
The constant momentum in the sound during the first movement wowed me. It felt like it was constantly moving, but wasn’t fatiguing in any way. Originally I would’ve described the ending of the first movement as abrupt, but I don’t think thats the right word. The stop was projected decently clearly in the front ensemble, but the aggressive, blunt, but short release still hits hard.
The second movement was similar stylistically, from the battery, but the front ensemble slowed down quite a bit. It created an intertesting contrast, as if it was the true start of the end with structures beginning to collapse. During this whole thing, the bass drums played an extended feature that just didn’t seem to stop. It accelerated throughout the entire solo smoothly, and the release felt like a sigh of acceptance of what was to come. Unlike many long features that came before it, it didn’t feel as if it was super long and as if it was the only interesting thing happening on the floor at the time.
The snare/bass/front ensemble transitional moment was not only technically impressive, but I think it was integral to the show thematically. To me, it felt like it was projecting a slow acceptance of “the end,” and signified that the group in the show was asking “what are we going to do now that its really over?” And as it turns out, they chose chaos. The ending was filled with destruction; walls falling, lamps breaking, cymbals flying, and the rest exploding in a puff. It all ended as suddenly as it started.
The crowd reaction to X was truly unreal. I don’t think I’ve seen so much of the crowd standing before the show was over in my time in the activity. It seemed like everyone was on their feet throwing babies for a solid 30 seconds before the last note. That alone was enough to give anyone goosebumps, and the sheer energy in the show was enough to make it almost unbearable. Many other amazing shows have wowed me in the past, but none of them gave me anything close to the way this made me feel. It was as if excitement, anxiety, and celebration had all boiled up at once. I will remember that moment as something remarkable for a very long time.
To break the score record 2 years in a row is insane, but I feel they earned it (as if my opinion matters lol). For what the activity has evolved into over the years, this felt like it was approaching the pinnacle. Unreal.