Welcome to WGI
Apr 2, 2009
By Philip Mayard
From the performance floor to the top row of the UD Arena, from the souvenir tent to the Marriott ballroom, take a look around this weekend, and you’ll see a lot of people smiling. While the “real world” (the actual real world, not the TV series) seems to be in an ever-complicated state of turmoil, for many of us who make the pilgrimage to WGI World Championships year after year, there isn’t a greater escape from reality than three days of flag-spinning, rifle-smacking, sabre-tossing, drum-pounding pageantry!
However, while there will certainly be numerous stunning performances this weekend, what will likely remain in our collective memories, in more vivid colors than any props or flags, will be the experience of being together with friends, family and thousands of other like-minded people. Is there anything more life affirming than running into an old friend and regaling shared experiences from years past?
Perhaps that’s why the results from a recent psychological study by Ryan Howell at San Francisco State University have caught the eye of so many, particularly those of us whose “discretionary income” may not be as sizeable as we’d like it to be.
The research suggests that, in the long run, positive experiences – rather than material possessions - make people happier and lead to longer-term satisfaction. “Experiences provide memory capital,” Howell said. “We don't tend to get bored of happy memories like we do with a material object.”
Another reason for increased happiness in experiences, the researchers found, was that people felt a greater sense of vitality or “being alive” during the experience and in reflection. “Whether they take someone with them or buy an extra ticket, most of our life experiences involve other individuals,” Howell said. People were fulfilling their need for social bonding while having these experiences.
In other words, you'll remember this championships experience long after you've lost your ticket stub, and those memories will continue to provide you with happiness.
This is not big news for many of us. Years ago we accepted that while our commitment to winter guard and indoor percussion might not bring us great monetary wealth, it would bring us wonderful memories and lifelong friendships we wouldn’t trade for any fancy car or expensive condominium.
During times of economic turmoil, the arts are sometimes dismissed as a frivolous luxury, but I would argue that the experiences we embrace as part of the WGI community are not an extravagance: they are essential to our quality of life.
And so, this weekend, let us stand up and cheer not only for our performers, many of whom have juggled school and jobs to get here, but also for the hard-working WGI staff and volunteers, who pull off this spectacular event every year. Let us congratulate the designers and instructors who create innovative and entertaining productions while miraculously scraping the funds together to bring their units here to compete. Let us applaud parents, friends and family members who sell candy, paint props and sew costumes; the fans who buy tickets and t-shirts; sponsors whose banners hang behind the performance floor; the generous city of Dayton; the videographer, the announcer and that man in the funny hat hawking raffle tickets. We’re all in this together and it’s going to be another unforgettable experience!
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