The second season nobody warns band parents about
Marching season ends in November and roughly two weeks later your guard kid has a new schedule, a new costume bill, and a competition season that runs to April. Welcome to winter guard. Nobody told us either.
Indoor color guard: flags, rifles, sabres, and dance, performed on a folded-out vinyl floor in a gym, to recorded music, judged. No band, no field, no weather. It is guard distilled to itself, and it is where guard kids do their most serious work. WGI, the national body, calls it the Sport of the Arts, and for once marketing is accurate.
Per the band handbook, FMHS fields two competitive winterguards: World and National A. Auditions run in the fall semester and are open to any FMHS student, marching experience or not. The guards compete locally in NTCA (North Texas Colorguard Association), the DFW circuit, with Saturday contests around the metroplex from roughly January into April, and in WGI, the national circuit, at regionals and, for the top guard, the World Championships in Dayton, Ohio, April 8 to 10, 2027.
WGI and NTCA group guards by skill, not school size:
| Class | Rough meaning |
|---|---|
| Regional A | Developing groups, building fundamentals |
| A | Solid, competitive, most school varsity guards live here |
| Open | Advanced, serious equipment work and staging |
| World | The top of the sport. Nationally ranked groups, Dayton finals on ESPN-adjacent production values |
Kids move up classes as they improve, which means your freshman can realistically climb from JV to a world class floor by junior year. Ask us how we know.
- Fall semester: auditions and placements, open to any FMHS student, choreography begins as marching winds down
- December and January: rehearsals build, weeknights plus weekends, the show comes together
- January through March: NTCA Saturdays. Doors at 8am energy, your guard performs for about four minutes, awards at night if you stay
- February and March: WGI regionals for guards on that track, sometimes out of state
- Early April: NTCA Championships
- April 8 to 10, 2027: WGI World Championships, Dayton, for the guards that earn it. Book the hotel the day you find out.
Yes, that means you will drive two hours to watch four minutes. You have trained for this all fall.
A separate winter fee covering costume, floor, music licensing, travel entries, and instruction. Budget for gloves, shoes, tights, makeup kits, and hair supplies on top. If the guard flies to WGI events, add airfare and the long gun case with real locks for weapon kids, covered in the starter guide's travel section. Ask for winter numbers in October so November doesn't ambush you.
The vinyl competition floor gets rolled out, stretched, taped, and ripped back up in under two minutes of transition time at every show, and the people doing it are parents. Floor crew is winter's pit crew: sweaty, choreographed, and standing closer to the performance than any ticket can get you. Do it once and you're hooked.
- No flash photography, ever. A flash during a rifle toss is genuinely dangerous. Venues announce it, believe them.
- Do not walk during a performance. Doors are held between groups.
- Shows run on tight schedules, check the circuit's posted times, arrive a group early.
- Scores post on the circuit's site and CompetitionSuite, and the guard parent group will have them faster.
- Clap for the tiny Regional A guard from a school you've never heard of. That was your kid two years ago.
Fall belongs to the band. Winter belongs to the guard. The kids who spent marching season as one section of two hundred spend winter as the entire show, and the growth between December and April is visible to the naked eye. It is the best value in the marching arts, and the parking is easier.
- WGI Sport of the Arts and future championship dates
- NTCA, North Texas Colorguard Association
- FMHS Color Guard and the FMHS NTCA group page
Checked August 2026.