When I was in college band (UW Husky Marching Band), we would regularly march “packers,” as in a person who doesn’t play the instrument but was filling that instrument’s hole. Drill would be written for a certain number in each section, and if it was easier to have one less tuba than have a hole in the piccolo section, a tuba player gets to march piccolo that week.

It was the easiest week of marching I had all season, and the flutes had some fun dances for me to learn.

Long story short, though, any given week there would be a few people just holding an instrument and marching, so one guy doing it every week wouldn’t be a big problem. Really wonder how sectionals went, though, as that’s just the section in a group playing the music. Tough to fake that.

I mean, if he did all the marching maneuvers, he wasn’t terribly much less valuable than the other band members. At some point, you just want more folks to march along, so it looks more impressive, not because you need more volume…