DCI and USBands add six hands-on clinics to 2026 Summer Tour

For marching drummers, the biggest gain in DCI’s new clinic rollout is simple: four hours inside a corps rehearsal block before the show starts, with a ticket in hand for the same night’s performance. Drum Corps International and USBands announced six DCI Event Day Clinics powered by USBands for the 2026 Summer Tour, giving students and educators a hands-on look at how elite ensembles build a show from the inside out.

The clinics will run as half-day sessions at stadium venues on tour days, with instruction for percussion, winds, color guard and educators. USBands says the format includes leadership sessions, side-by-side participation with corps members and immersion in ensemble rehearsal. DCI says the clinics are open to all categories of marching music performers and educators, and that educators can earn professional development credit. Registration also includes a commemorative T-shirt and admission to that evening’s DCI Tour event.

The first stop is set for Stanford Stadium on Sunday, July 5, with Santa Clara Vanguard serving as the featured corps. Other 2026 stops are slated for Denton, Houston, Dallas, Murfreesboro and Annapolis, extending the series across the summer circuit and tying the afternoon clinic directly to the night show. At select stops, participants will learn and perform parts of the 2026 field production with the corps itself, a rare chance to connect what happens in rehearsal to what lands on the field under the lights.

The clinics also fit into a much larger tour calendar. DCI says the 2026 Tour will include more than 75 events across more than 30 states over six weeks, leading to the DCI World Championships from August 3-8. USBands’ own summer education lineup is running alongside that calendar with separate events in Mishawaka, Greeley, Pasadena, Corpus Christi, Humble and Atlanta, including clinics and workshops with The Blue Devils.

The partnership has been building since 2022, when DCI first folded USBands clinics into its summer season. DCI expanded the series to five tour stops in 2024, and earlier event pages tied corps-in-residence assignments to stops in Denton, Houston, Dallas, Delaware and Murfreesboro, including Santa Clara Vanguard, the Blue Devils and the Cavaliers. This year’s six-clinic slate pushes that model further, turning a standard event day into a closer look at how a marching show gets built, one rehearsal rep at a time.