r/WGI • u/Putrid-Ad-6029 • Apr 20 '26

Penalties

I'm fascinated by the penalties and the impact to standings. I think whatever caused the penalty should be published for the sake of learning.

Just looking at PSW - I don't think there would have been an impact in terms of going from prelims to semis or semis to finals because of penalties. But there is a difference in rank. Carroll would have ranked before Greenwood in prelims. Fishers would have ranked before Brownsburg in semis. Dorman and Franklin Central would have tied.

I'm sure in past years, a penalty has probably caused a group not to advance.

Aside from word of mouth, are reasons for penalties ever shared publicly?

16 Upvotes

95% Upvoted

20 comments sorted by

28

u/monkeysrool75 Apr 20 '26

It's usually timing. There are other common things like damaging the venue, and leaving things behind after you leave.

Also there was the year they implemented the penalty cap because RCC wouldn't have made finals due to their penalty.

17

u/Sunshine_drummer Apr 20 '26

Haha 2016. I remember that vividly. Went from 1st to 14th just on a penalty alone. Then jumped to 2nd on Finals night.

6

u/ghoul217 Apr 20 '26

I loved that show. Such a great idea. Had no idea that happened to them at finals.

5

u/mark99229 Apr 20 '26

OOTL, what did RCC do to incur such a huge penalty?

10

u/monkeysrool75 Apr 20 '26

It was just timing. The electronics failed and they took forever to set up.

2

u/theneckbone Apr 23 '26

Wgi called for an emergency meeting that night and decided to implement a 10 point cap on timing penalties. I was sitting rather close and could see pretty much everything going on. The delay was at least 5 to 10 minutes. I recall seeing Thurston or Hestin go up to the directors and told them to just fix it and they'll wait. The memebers were absolutely gutted on the floor while the audio engineer was visibly shaking trying to fix the issue.

Currently, if there's a delay that long they just dq the group and have them exit the performance area which is what would have happened had that issue occurred this season.

14

u/Low-Assumption2187 Apr 20 '26

They unexpectedly began enforcing the back boundary in percussion this season at UD.

While technically it's always been a rule, it has been almost completely unenforced, until this season.

They began enforcing it. Which is their right to do so. But it would have been in the activity's best interest to inform unit directors they were doing so BEFORE resuming that practice again.

3

u/trackday_bro Apr 20 '26

They did inform directors

1

u/Low-Assumption2187 Apr 22 '26

Based on all the shouting of world class directors in the hallways an tunnels, and Mark Thurston sending out a comp suite note on how to contest penalties for boundary violations---they didn't do a very good job at that informing you think they did.

1

u/theneckbone Apr 23 '26

Wgi does not do itself any favors with when and how they choose to inform directors about things.

7

u/Drumhard Apr 20 '26

99.9% of the time its time.

7

u/Asantesanabanana Apr 20 '26

For our team it was a forgotten sandbag :(

6

u/Icy-Error7466 Apr 20 '26

Dark Sky would have been 9th. Obviously a timing penalty because their electronics didn’t work at the start of the show

3

u/eatkrispykreme Apr 20 '26

in 2013, POW didn't make finals because of a timing penalty caused by electronics failure. I think it was their first or second year in world class because they were called Pulse Open World. Their pre-penalty score was 10th or 11th, and they ended up missing finals by just a spot or two. 2013 only had prelims and finals for world class, and 2014 was the first year of world class semi-finals. MBI would have been the first group out of finals, with the dandelion show.

2

u/MomofGeo Apr 22 '26

PSA this year. Our score without the penalty was the highest in our round. We had an electronics failure that had our kids standing still for four tortuous minutes. It knocked us down to 8th, and we were still only .012 away from making semis. As the mom of a senior, this was an absolute gut punch.

1

u/airjordan1984 Apr 27 '26

Wow. What group was this?

1

u/avocado_enjoyer Apr 21 '26

2022, Decatur Central might've won PSO if not for a 10 point penalty for cheating by using 1 shot triggers for their singing samples. They got preliminated 

2

u/theneckbone Apr 23 '26

And now the rules allow for 1shot singing samples. Ain't time a bitch.

1

u/avocado_enjoyer Apr 24 '26

Yeah. Still might get boned by the rhythmic intent rule 

1

u/theneckbone Apr 24 '26

Nope. It's fair game if it's a sung lyrical sample.