Wheeling High School is the place to be Saturday, when the Chicagoland Marching Band Festival returns, this year with 21 bands from city and suburban high schools. Some of the participating bands include: Buffalo Grove, Fremd, Glenbrook South, Lake Park, Prospect and of course, Wheeling.
Members of the Wheeling High School marching band at the 2025 festival.
The festival starts at 3 p.m. Saturday, with bands taking the field every 15 minutes. Final awards are handed out at 10 p.m. Purchase tickets, here.
“The Wheeling Community looks forward to hosting this event as an educational experience for all visiting bands, entertainment for our spectators, and to provide all attendees to experience the incredible resources and facilities we have in District 214,” says Mike Malek, Director of Bands at Wheeling.
The high school first hosted the festival back in 1966 and over the years, Malek says, trends in the activity have changed, as high school marching bands take their leads from college marching bands and drum corps units. Most notable among the changes, he says, is the increased use of large-scale props.
“Even back 10 years ago when I started teaching high school there were much fewer props on the field.” Malek says. “Now, bands are putting giant jack-in-the-boxes for color guard members to jump out of, and bird cages for students to escape from.
“It’s very theatrical,” he adds, “almost like the football field is a stage and audiences are sitting in a theater watching a production.”
As an extension of leaning into the more theatrical aspects of the show, more bands feature amplified sound systems, sound effects and microphones to supplement the sound on the field, Malek says.
“Bands are leaning into their front line percussion team, essentially operating like a musical pit orchestra that provides a soundtrack,” he adds, “to allow students on the field to explore movement and choreography, as well.”
Wheeling’s halftime show demonstrates just that with their show, Presto Chango: a Magic Show!
“The show dazzles the audience with exciting music and choreography,” Malek says, “and culminates with a guard member who steps into a disappearing box and then reappears on the other side of the field.”
As entertaining as the show is, with so many marching bands performing a wide variety of music — from pop to Broadway and jazz classics — the overarching goal of the festival, Malek says, is to provide high school students with an educational experience.
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