DCE Re-Launches Indoor Music Games

2016 will see the re-launch of the Indoor Music Games across Europe, a series of SoundSport events produced by Drum Corps Europe in cooperation with Drum Corps International and the national sanctioning organization in each country sponsoring an event.

The series will debut in Dublin, Ireland on Sat 27th February 2016 and finish in Glasgow, Scotland in May. There are also additional shows currently being planned for England between those dates, and one in mainland Europe in April.

This announcement follows a very successful pilot show held in Bristol earlier this year, produced in partnership with Drum Corps International. The re-launch of this exciting new marching music project will make marching music activities accessible to a huge range of performing groups as well as existing drum corps and marching bands. The shows will be hosted in sports halls and arenas, similar to venues used for winter color guard competitions.

In addition there will be the Premier Class and Junior Class for drum & bugle corps including a scoring system. The Junior Class is for groups with members aged 16 and under, while the Premier Class has no age limits.

DCE Chairman Marcel Matthijsse said, “The Indoor Music Games and SoundSport are excellent ways to get new groups involved in marching music activities and provide an achievable performance opportunity to groups which are looking to potentially reform but don’t currently have the resources to compete in the summer season. In SoundSport there is no requirement for groups to march a show, as overall entertainment is the key factor. We realised that there are also a number of groups looking to perform a full marching show and want to be scored on a more traditional linear system. Therefore we have decided to reintroduce our ‘Indoor Music Games’ series, which we ran successfully in the early 2000s – this time with the addition of the SoundSport format – creating even more opportunities for participation.”

IMBA Chairperson Oisin Molloy said “We are very excited to be launching the Indoor Music Games in Dublin and hope that these shows will make our activity easily accessible to other performing ensembles.”

Further details on these shows will be posted in the coming weeks on the DCE website, and groups interested in participating can email Andy Hewlett: andy [at] drumcorpseurope [dot] org.