2023 WGI Percussion & Winds World Championships Watch Guide
The second and final weekend of WGI World Championships kicks off tomorrow and we have you covered with another handy watch guide!
Hello and welcome to the second week of WGI World Championships! After a thrilling weekend of color guard performances last weekend, percussion and winds take center stage this weekend to wrap up the 2023 WGI season. In total, 198 marching percussion units, 19 concert percussion ensembles, and 41 indoor winds groups will be attending and competing for a spot in their respective class finals.
Percussion competition beings tomorrow morning at 9:00 AM ET with the marching Scholastic World class at the University of Dayton Arena and the marching Scholastic A class at Hobart Arena. Here is the breakdown of each venue and the classes competing at them:
University of Dayton Arena: marching Scholastic World and Independent World; 9:11 AM to 10:16 PM ET
Wright State Univ. Nutter Center: marching Scholastic Open and all scholastic concert classes; 10:00 AM to 9:08 PM ET
Hobart Arena: marching Scholastic A (Rounds 1 & 2) and Independent A; 9:00 AM to 3:33 PM ET
Truist Arena: marching Scholastic A (Rounds 3 & 4) and Independent Open; 10:00 AM to 8:15 PM ET
Across all marching percussion classes, 106 ensembles will advance to their respective semifinals on Friday. As is typically the case, concert percussion does not have a semifinals round and will advance 14 ensembles to their finals, which will take place on Friday night at the Nutter Center. Likewise, Independent A only has 15 competing ensembles this year and will not have a semifinals; all 15 ensembles will advance to Friday’s night A Class Finals.
A total of 104 percussion ensembles will have the honor of calling themselves finalists and competing in the final rounds of the weekend. Percussion competition concludes with A Class Finals on Friday night, Open Class Finals on Saturday morning/afternoon, and World Class Finals on Saturday night, all occurring at the University of Dayton Arena.
As has been tradition since WGI launched Winds in 2015, their prelims competition begins on Saturday at the Nutter Center at 9:30 AM ET. Of the 41 total ensembles competing, 36 will advance to Winds Finals which will take place on Sunday morning and afternoon at the University of Dayton Arena.
Did you check out our dashboard and watch guide for last weekend’s Color Guard Championships? Will you be following the action from home on FloMarching? Well we have great news for you - we have one for Percussion and Winds Championships too! The schedule page contains a master list of all performances in chronological order to help list every group performing at each venue at any given time. The table can also be filtered by group type (percussion or winds), day, class, venue, or show round by using the drop-down filters on the top of the page. Check it out here!
Both the schedule and season rankings pages contain projected scores for every group attending World Championship. This is a metric we are tracking that roughly estimates a group's projected score at World Championships based on their last score at a WGI Regional during the season. Scores are projected by adding 6 points to a group's max score if they last competed in Week 1, 5 points if they last competed in Week 2, 4 points in Week 3, etc. The idea is that the projected score can be used to more fairly rank and compare groups based on when they most recently competed at a WGI competition. Unlike color guard, which tracks and uses projected seeding scores to appropriately schedule groups at World Championships, projected scores are NOT an official metric tracked or used by WGI Percussion. Lastly, groups with a missing projected score and rank either did not compete at a 2023 WGI Regional or have not competed in their class after a reclassification.
The dashboard will be updated throughout the weekend as semifinals and finals schedules are created and released. Additionally, look for a World Championships scores page to be added to the dashboard as scores begin to be released tomorrow.
Do you want to rewatch your favorite performances or catch those that you missed? FloMarching will also be doing re-broadcasts again of all four days of World Championships, exactly 24 hours after each original performance. More information can be found on FloMarching’s website.
It’s hard to believe, but we are already close to ending another fantastic season of WGI competition. Enjoy this weekend of some amazing performances!
Marching Arts by the Numbers is a current staff writer and stats guru for General Effect Media. He has been involved in the marching arts activity for nearly two decades. Marching Arts by the Numbers is his passion project with the mission of being the primary source of statistical information for the marching arts community. You can follow more of his work at @band_scores on Twitter.