Each Harmony Brigade officially meets just one weekend a year (known as "the Rally Weekend"),  which begins on Friday afternoon around 3:00 pm.  For those arriving on Thursday evening, the organizers often arrange informal performance opportunities on Friday morning at local schools.  (Note: early arrival is optional and an additional hotel night is payable.)

After hotel check-in, you look for the Brigade registration table where you receive a colored lanyard with a badge showing your name and voice part. There is also a song list with key signatures, a weekend schedule and a "dance card."  From then until dinner you are on your own to  quartet in as many different quartet combinations as possible.
You'll need to stop singing long enough for dinner, which is an excellent time for meeting even more of the participants. Attendees are then assigned randomly into  quartets. Each foursome selects a name, and gets assigned a random contest song. Quartets then have about an hour to rehearse their song.
The quartets then gather and compete in random order in front of  a panel of judges.  The top-scoring quartets advance to a final competition round the following day. The entire group has a run-through of the repertoire on Saturday, and appears on the Saturday evening show as a chorus.  After this, there is more quartetting late into the night.

Following breakfast on Saturday morning a Brigade business meeting is held. In the afternoon,  the Brigade rehearses for the evening show. The quartet final competition round is held, with the winning quartet usually invited to sing a song on the show.  Then an early dinner is served, followed by a short time to prepare for the evening performance. The show combines the Brigade chorus, step-out quartets and other invited musical acts.  While the chorus is not the focus of the Brigade, the sound achieved by this no-rehearsal group is a thrilling and unique chorus experience.  The show is followed some pizza and quartetting into the early morning hours.

Sunday morning there is breakfast, time for good-byes and a few more songs, then wishing everyone a safe trip home.