2025 WGI Thread

[TWHSPercDad]

  On 3/16/2025 at 10:04 PM, packwick said:

carmel cleaning up and overtaking the Mid-East group as expected. might not get a Carmel-less top 3 at Dayton after all. other SWs at Mid-East a lil more iffy, but mostly better today in finals than yesterday in prelims.

for the life of me still can't figure out why fusion got smacked down after watching the IWs at both southeast and mideast. id have it fusion then fantasia then pride rn. fusion's show stands out as waaay more forward thinking and imaginative imo. takes you more places emotionally and intellectually, too. the others don't strike me as prob being cleaner than fusion, either. lots of errors today from all three of pride, paramount, and etude. verrrry interested to see what happens at the east power regional next weekend.

meanwhile in San Antonio, those A guards got smacked down HARD. don't really get it, comparing the scores from the groups at the power regionals i watched yesterday and today to the guards i saw 2 weeks ago at Austin. did they reeeally screw up that bad? methinks the judges were just way stingy. unfortunately, the tcgc a class qualifier is next week. those A guards are prob wishing they could have signed up for Dallas instead, to get the double panel. the San Antonio scores will prob handicap them at Dayton.

arcadia back up over woodlands in standings by 0.1 after trailing them by just over a point after the Manhattan Beach regional. super experienced panel seemed to kinda send a message w/ those scores, esp w/ El dorado winning effect. gotta say, i came away from watching that regional feeling woodlands should comfortably win gold at Dayton. we'll see what happens next weekend tho.

scores trending low in the world classes. + Dayton is a week earlier. yikes!!

Expand  

Agreed about our Texas guards performing in San Antonio.

For example, Jordan HS went from 3rd in SA seeding last week, to 23rd this week.

That is a KILLER!!!!

[packwick]

something i also picked up for the first time when watching arcadia last week and watching carmel today was how both have a full line of dancers that never really pick up and spin a piece of guard equipment. not exactly on the sheets as a POC, besides maybe difficulty and risk, but at the world class level i find it kinda odd. heck, even most of the top scholastic As i've seen have all of their members spinning at some point. like, beautiful shows, both of em, lots of craftsmanship, but kinda playin' it safe.

[Rubisco]

Ah, the forum is back. I thought it might have died for good!

  On 3/16/2025 at 11:40 PM, TWHSPercDad said:

Agreed about our Texas guards performing in San Antonio.

For example, Jordan HS went from 3rd in SA seeding last week, to 23rd this week.

That is a KILLER!!!!

Expand  

Unfortunately, the rankings for all of those units will probably drop even more after next weekend. But there are some other Dayton-bound A class guards that will be at the Southwest Power Regional and could earn high scores at that event.

  On 3/17/2025 at 1:45 AM, packwick said:

something i also picked up for the first time when watching arcadia last week and watching carmel today was how both have a full line of dancers that never really pick up and spin a piece of guard equipment. not exactly on the sheets as a POC, besides maybe difficulty and risk, but at the world class level i find it kinda odd. heck, even most of the top scholastic As i've seen have all of their members spinning at some point. like, beautiful shows, both of em, lots of craftsmanship, but kinda playin' it safe.

Expand  

"Playing it safe." That about sums up why I'm not loving most of the world class shows this year. The same criticism you make here could be leveled against Pride of Cincinnati, for example, who have performers who only pick up flags at the very end. And Pride of Cincinnati doesn't have recruiting issues, I can assure you! To put things into perspective: TWHS does more full-ensemble spinning and tossing than Pride of Cincinnati does this year. Let that sink in. Also, maybe that's why you find the TWHS show a little too busy at times. 😉

To my mind, the world class is supposed to be about performers and designers taking big risks. But that doesn't always or even often happen. And perhaps the biggest reason is because the people judging send mixed messages with what they reward. Truly, I think if Paramount had their full 40-member guard cleanly toss and catch 8s on rifle with 3-turns under them, they still might not win equipment over a guard that tosses no higher than small ensemble 6s, as long as that guard does things a little more fast/slow, heavy/light, and so on and so forth -- the subjective "dynamic efforts." It's like when Hebron loses ensemble music performance to Carmel. It is what it is, I suppose. 🤷

[packwick]

@Rubisco def get it about the dynamic efforts, you'll get some hand-wavy explanations about that stuff in critique. buuuut methinks it would also be reeeeally hard to separate a lot of guards w/o it bc so many do the exact same skills, often combined in similar ways. not possible to just count up all the various skills a guard attempts either, unless AI can do it for us. too much going on at once!!!

LOL at the Hebron reference. it's kinda true tho, isn't it?? technically on a diff plane of existence vs. doing things just a lil bit more dynamically/musically. btw, chronic offender personally. i thought Carmel should have won BOA in 2023 lol. in my defense, thru music GE, not perf.

[packwick]

3 different power regionals on Flo tomorrow + Sunday in 3 different time zones!! east, southwest, and west!! + Orlando, but not being streamed. those FL guards reeeally got the short end of the Flo stick this year. not going to see Flanagan or Stoneman Douglas going into Dayton probably. Flanagan beating Tarpon earlier + getting very strong upstairs content scores could bode well for em, if the performers have kicked it up a notch.

east: most curious to see if fusion gets a score that puts em back at or near the top. warren central also at this one. second chance to get a better seeding score. they were a bit dirtier than expected at mideast, esp the flags. thinking Shenendehowa gets a score that lets them climb up a bit in the rankings.

southwest: will keep an eye on Melissa and Foster in A class. you'd think Melissa takes it based on previous results. but A class gonna A class. thinkin open may be more competitive than just Pearland on top, too. keeping an eye on little elm and Emerson, also don't think it's outside realm of possibility for friendswood or Bowie to make inroads here. Pearland's show is elegant and clean, but could be one that peaks earlier. woodlands world essentially needs a 90 to be back over Carmel. knowing that, i suspect that i will think they deserve a 91+, unless they just flop on the performance.

west: arcadia vs. el dorado. el dorado straight up won effect thru content at Manhattan beach. might not be an easy arcadia win here, tho personally id prob still have them on top at this event, unless very significant changes have been made to the designs. richness and complexity to the staging that el dorado's show lacks imo. thinking the greater emotional impact is what gave el dorado the edge in effect. also el dorado gets a cookie for having their full guard spin lol, like, u know, most of the other guards in the world class. in open, i was thinking maybe mountain ridge, who i would have had above PDCMS at Manhattan beach, but don't think they're at this one. so prob PDCMS then?? fun show, but just too scattered in soundtracking and staging for my tastes. fantasia ofc always a pleasure to watch. could they be ranked first after this weekend?? absolutely. IW is wide open at the top!!!

[packwick]

didn't realize Lockhart was going to Orlando. Americas too. Lockhart sitting in 4th after prelims. congrats to them!!! also already about 4 points higher than last week at San Antonio, prob will increase even more in finals. still thinkin' those San Antonio guards were lowballed.

[Origin]

Big score for Flanagan 😳

[Origin]

Arcadia is reallllly cleaning up, but the show doesn’t seem to be connecting as much with the audience. 

[Origin]

TWHS very solidly in first going into Dayton! Flanagan in 2nd over Carmel, but Carmel did score a bit higher in their local circuit yesterday.

[packwick]

yesss, woodlands will be seeded first by just over two points over Flanagan, Carmel, Arcadia, + El Dorado. 1 1/2ish points if the DA score is indeed wrong. that 2nd thru 5th grouping is gonna be reeeeal interesting methinks. kinda like how the entire top 6 is gonna be in IW. like, messyyy ordinals probably. still wanna see Flanagan w/ my own eyes to confirm. could think they're underscored. s'ppose warren central and northview could also be in the 2-5 mix, but personally don't see it.

tx open guards are kinda killin it this season. little elm will seeded 2nd, Pearland 3rd, Emerson 5th, Westlake 8th, Bowie tie for 13th, then i believe cyfair just "outside looking in" in 17th. sorry couldn't help myself LOL. considering they tied Bowie in prelims, def not out of the finals conversation. the oveido drop to 16th, i think, is pretty interesting. wondering if that holds. also if dobyns misses finals. they're all kinda right there in the standings.

A class, just too many units to bother right now. they'll be released tomorrow anyway. Melissa in 3rd i think. Katy shooting up from 61st to 8th??? will that hold? veterans memorial should still be somewhere around 10th i think. they may have lucked out by NOT going to San Antonio!!

[mussheet]

  On 3/24/2025 at 2:17 AM, packwick said:

yesss, woodlands will be seeded first by just over two points over Flanagan, Carmel, Arcadia, + El Dorado. 1 1/2ish points if the DA score is indeed wrong. that 2nd thru 5th grouping is gonna be reeeeal interesting methinks. kinda like how the entire top 6 is gonna be in IW. like, messyyy ordinals probably. still wanna see Flanagan w/ my own eyes to confirm. could think they're underscored. s'ppose warren central and northview could also be in the 2-5 mix, but personally don't see it.

tx open guards are kinda killin it this season. little elm will seeded 2nd, Pearland 3rd, Emerson 5th, Westlake 8th, Bowie tie for 13th, then i believe cyfair just "outside looking in" in 17th. sorry couldn't help myself LOL. considering they tied Bowie in prelims, def not out of the finals conversation. the oveido drop to 16th, i think, is pretty interesting. wondering if that holds. also if dobyns misses finals. they're all kinda right there in the standings.

A class, just too many units to bother right now. they'll be released tomorrow anyway. Melissa in 3rd i think. Katy shooting up from 61st to 8th??? will that hold? veterans memorial should still be somewhere around 10th i think. they may have lucked out by NOT going to San Antonio!!

Expand  

something about those san antonio judges were really weird with how they were scoring A class. i have a feeling me wight see schools like jordan, dripping, and tomball memorial slip into finals at worlds when the judges in dayton see them

[LKendrick]

Lots to like this year.  Loved watching online this past weekend.  

Had to bow out of the Independent classes, but sure there's some great stuff going on.  Caught Eagle Mountain, very fun show!  

The Woodlands to me this year has a level of execution going into championships I haven't seen from them the last three seasons.  Which of course were fantastic.  But there's a confidence there this year that is just another level.  I was on the Arcadia train most of the season but I think The Woodlands is my pick now.  Would love Texas to bring home its first SW gold.  And I think even if Avon hadn't been off this year TW would still be in the drivers seat.  

Scholastic Open was a blast to watch this weekend, super deep.  Little Elm is just downright beautiful, this is their best IMO since they won Scholastic A in 2010 with that gorgeous Somewhere In Time show.  I think they medal.  The rifle sequence when the six come up front in the little block and stagger out and up to the benches is just chefs kiss awesome.  Noblesville is VERY good, but I think Little Elm will be up there with them.  Emerson is also an incredibly striking and gorgeous show.  Adore the costumes gradually shifting throughout the whole production and the usage of the tarp.  The use of space and silence is so well done.  Was very interested to see how they would do with the promotion and it seems very well.  Pearland also very pretty, the finals run in particular was incredibly tight.  Add Westlake on to that and you have four Texas guards really pushing the top of this class.  James Bowie also doing well, very exciting program from them.  I hope Cy-Fair can get in, love the aesthetic of that show and just find it very unique.  

Scholastic A continues to be as deep as ever in Texas.  Melissa will do VERY well in Dayton, super mature show from them.  Katy was a surprise, it's wild how fast you can rise in that class over a few weeks, great showing from them.  Also loved Wylie, that show is very Dobyns-Bennett to me.  It's cheesy.  But in the absolute best way.  Add the heavy hitters from Austin and Houston and we could see a great Texas representation in finals in this class.  

[Rubisco]

Do they not actually post the final standings on the WGI page? I thought they do, but the page seems to have vanished.

[Yaz]

We just finished WGI Dallas (Percussion) Very proud of the kids! They got 1st in Scholastic Open!

[packwick]

  On 3/24/2025 at 8:17 PM, Rubisco said:

Do they not actually post the final standings on the WGI page? I thought they do, but the page seems to have vanished.

Expand  

hmmm they do usually post the final standings, then leave em up for a few days as they work on the schedule, then as Dayton approaches they remove them, maybe bc Dayton is supposed to be a fresh competition and they don't want the rankings influencing things. could still be working on em, but seems like they maybe just won't post them at all. links to old ones totally removed.

good thing i put in the effort last night i guess lol.

[packwick]

Stoneman Douglas

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tadz5ijpRAM

[packwick]

aaaand the guy posted Flanagan too.

https://youtu.be/mtCAfEVviQ0?si=zaWyK4PzYhcFrFdU

the return of the early naughts Hide and Seek guard show!!! ~*nostaaalgia~*

performers def on a diff level than they have been. don't think they could have done the roll toss as cleanly last yr. beautiful design too. should they have full pointed tarpon tho?? dunno about that. i think there's a lot of truth to the belief that wgi's judges favor somewhat cookie cutter "slow + pretty" shows, esp over the cerebral, science-y type of show that tarpon does this yr.

anywho, i'd still have woodlands comfortably winning in Dayton, unless their performance is way worse than normal. they're like a yr ahead of everyone else in equipment skills. fuller range of artistic expression as well. aaand despite what the scores say, id have arcadia 2nd. think their show is a lil more imaginative than the others in the 2-5 group. like having a nice glass of wine in an aquarium as a professor lectures you LOL. no bias against intellectual shows from me!!!

3rd... hmmm... i'll say Flanagan, but could be Carmel or El Dorado.

i like that top three. woodlands w/ a good blend of high excitement and lyricism and intellectual quirkiness. arcadia w/ a risky, more purely intellectual quirkiness w/ subtle emotional builds. and then Flanagan w/ your more typical beautiful Hide and Seek throwback show.

[Rubisco]

  9 hours ago, packwick said:

aaaand the guy posted Flanagan too.

https://youtu.be/mtCAfEVviQ0?si=zaWyK4PzYhcFrFdU

the return of the early naughts Hide and Seek guard show!!! ~*nostaaalgia~*

 

Expand  

What is it, 2007? Didn't Flanagan get the memo? 2025 is all about 30 years of runnin', 30 years of searchin', 30 years of hurtin', 30 years of pain!

I honestly think those guards should get together for a group photo at Dayton. 😄

[Hard Core Band Fan]

  9 hours ago, Rubisco said:

What is it, 2007? Didn't Flanagan get the memo? 2025 is all about 30 years of runnin', 30 years of searchin', 30 years of hurtin', 30 years of pain!

I honestly think those guards should get together for a group photo at Dayton. 😄

Expand  

Ugh, I am so tired of that piece. I've seen groups perform that back to back and one final had 5 groups with that music throughout the classes. I "hope" everyone got this out of their systems.