Some styles don't quite follow those patterns, but can be entertaining to watch anyways. The Akido black belt tests are like watching a violent dance.
My personal preference is to go watch a black belt/sash test at a local Kung Fu school (not Tai Chi or Wing Chun). Usually you'll see about a dozen really interesting forms, including a variety of traditional weapons, and two and three person forms, and some sparring. Typically you won't see board breaking in Chinese styles. If the style involves Chin-na you'll see some joint locking and maybe wrestling. It's kind of a tour of 1500 years of martial arts history.
At one school I went to, the test was about 4-5 hours long, and continuous (no breaks) -- apparently the student had also undergone a 1 hour fitness pretest before qualifying for the test which included some crazy metrics like 100 v-sits, 100 push-ups, 15 minutes in a low horse stance and some other things.
These guys were very fit.