Lancer Joust kicks off season for Chicago-area bands

The Lancer Joust, a marching band festival in northwest-suburban Roselle, Ill., has been running for 34 years now, and the 225 volunteers in Jim Wronski’s crew at Lake Park High School made this year’s edition of one of the Chicago area’s biggest festivals a hit, the Daily Herald reports. (Photos available.)

“Everyone’s here to listen to the marching bands,” the paper quoted Becky Steele, drum major of the Waubonsie Valley High School Marching Warriors, as saying. “You get a lot of goose bumps. … You can tell at the end if it’s a good show by how everyone is smiling.”

Activities for students included changing into different uniforms inside “crowded school buses with dozens of sweaty bandmates,” posing for pictures, some of them formal, some on the silly side, and—here’s the big one—scoping out the competition.

“I love hearing the music from other bands,” Steele told the Daily Herald.

Performing Bands

Lake Park’s own marching band performed in exhibition (not included in the final competition rankings). Other bands performed in competition, grouped into class based on the size of the band, not the official school enrollment, as is common in many athletic competitions. The smallest performing ensembles are placed in Class 1A.

Class 1A

• Lincoln-Way West
• Wheaton North

Class 2A

• Andrew
• Herscher
• Naperville Central
• Naperville North
• Waubonsie Valley
• Wheeling

Class 3A

• Downers Grove South
• Elk Grove
• Glenbrook South
• Lemont
• Lincoln-Way East
• Lockport Township
• Prospect
• Waukesha North, Wis.