Fayetteville NC Show

[Florida Sun]

Scott thanks for the update on the move ,wish you guys a great season .Good showing in Wayne last week .Keep it moving .

[BOSMarcher]

Quick Show review.

The show was held at Cape Fear High School and the performance side of he stadium was filled. I heard 500 or 700 was the attendance depending on who you asked but the stands looked full.

A light rain fell from 7 to 8pm but stopped just as the performances began. The temperature was 78 degrees at 7:30

Alliance was first to perform they had a good brass sound but you tell it was their first performance. Some of the color guard moves were well executed, other times there seemed to be a little confusion. Unfortunately what I remember most about the show was that it seemed to come to an abrupt end we were waiting for a climax and then it just stopped and the drum major told them to exit the field. I wish I remembered more good things about the show, it wasn't bad just nothing really jumped out and caught my attention.

The Sun Devils had a really strong and clean percussion section. I spent most of their show watching the drum line and they were very good at visualizing the drum rudiments. I could look at the snares and see if they were doing paradiddles or whatever and they accented the horn line. The horns sounded strong, and their guard seemed to hit all their points. They had a few interesting items they were hitting in the pit also. I believe they won the high percussion award. I was not aware that they were class A. Their horn #'s Were not that much smaller than the other corps. Their drum line did more drill than the other corps and shifted into a triangle shape several times and marched in interaction with the guard and horns. I appeared that they were short one snare drum and the other snares did a good job making adjustments to that missing space. I liked their show, I wish I had taken notes so that I could give more constructive feedback.

After the show the Sun Devils did an Encore for the crowd then sang and played their corps song which was based on the Navy Hymn. It appeared that they had a good time and the crowd really appreciated their efforts. It gave a sort of family feeling to the whole event.

Carolina Gold was next and since this was their home show the audience was fired up. Their color guard was big and had attitude, The women all had long straight pony tails and looked like they meant business. The Guard pretty much covered the field and you had to notice them. The horn line was not as large as the other two corps but probably had the loudest sound. The Audience was wild everytime the guard caught all their flags They really owned the field as they performed. I probably should taken notes. Something about the girls in the guard mesmerized me so I spent most of the show concentrating on them something about girls in the graveyard at night. The guys in the guard also did a good job. I think they had more guard members than horn players. The drum line was OK but did not telescope what they were doing the way the Sun Devils had.

They also did an encore after the show and a large part of the crowd stayed through that.

Coastal Surge went on in Exhibition after that. It was the smallest corps of the evening. They only had 5 guard members. They seemed to be solid musically but they need to work on their drill. Their drums sounded clean but in the drill I had a hard time looking at them to see how they were playing since they were moving around quite a bit and I did not always have a clear line of sight.

Being a DCI Corps they used amplification to make sea and storm sounds. I am not a fan of amps, but in their case it did not seem to be overused. I have not seen a DCI lower tier corps show for a while so I really have no idea what their competitors are doing and how they will stack up. The crowd seemed to like the show.

I was very happy with the show I would no be afraid to take my friends to another show with the same level of performance. I think that Carolina Gold will be able to get most of the crowd back next year and I hope it does become an annual event.

Thanks for the review. From what I was told, Alliance did not perform their closer yesterday (sounded like it was only their second or third run of that entire show segment). Not really an excuse, though I am glad to see another southern corps back out there... wish Shenandoah Sound a speedy return.

Thanks again!

[BOSMarcher]

Also, it looks like Alliance got a 6 point penalty (ouch!) and won percussion. Carolina Gold swept the other captions, it appears.

[BigW]

Thanks for the review. Good to hear from down South, Alliance is out, and Sun Devils are exciting!

[totaleefree]

I seem to have 2 different accounts depending on which computer I log into. Last time I logged in it logged me as Babylon which was an account I hadn't used for years. I think that this is my regular account.

I wanted to add some positive things about the Fayetteville Show. Somehow I did state it wrong when I said the Sun Devils had won high percussion, it was Alliance which I saw when I looked at the score recap. What makes this really bad is that I presented the awards. Which by the way were metronomes and electronic tuners, which I think will help the corps much better than a big trophy taking up space somewhere.

One good thing was that Alliance was back after taking a year off of competition, I think every time I hear a Corps is taking time off but they will be back you think yeah sure. So many times that year becomes 2 years then 3 then the corps disappears into history. I believe the Carolina Gold took a year off 5 or 6 years ago also and they came back. I believe this shows that the corps have resiliency and good administration hopefully they will not have to take off any more years any time soon.

It was also a home show for Gold, their first in a long time. They had an opportunity to perform in front of their friends and families in a competitive setting. I couldn't imagine putting a lot of work into my show every year and always telling my family and neighbors, about what the corps was doing then telling them that if they want to see us and our competitors you need to take an 8 hour drive. They also had the alumni in the Audience stand and be recognized. Though it wasn't a huge number there were many in the crowd and you could see that the corps has laid down some roots, and of course these folks brought friends so they could show them what they used to do.

The tickets were reasonably priced, I believe they were $6 or $8 for general Admission, and I met several people who just came to see what Drum corps was about.

That helped with the next point, the stands were full, I am sure it was good for the corps to play into full stands and see their work be appreciated. I have been to shows where there were a few fans in the stands and more corps staff in the stands than fans and the corps did shows but you could see they didn't get boost from the crowd. In Fayetteville I think every Corp got a great boost from the crowd and played to it.. I don't know the financials, I have no idea what the costs to the host corps are, but having full stands helps a lot getting word out and recruiting future members. IMO having more people there even if it means slightly less revenue that day pays dividend in the long run.

They had Coastal Surge from Myrtle Beach do an Exhibition. The Surge is a 2nd Year DCI open Class Corp, last year they did only exhibitions at a few DCI shows all several states away. Fayetteville is about 2 hours from Myrtle Beach and most of Surges Members came from the area between Myrtle Beach and Fayetteville. Most of the corps members families had never seen the corps compete, Though they were in exhibition and DCA is a different world from DCI open class a lot of their friends and Families got to see drum corps. I met several people who were there to see friends and family members who were with surge and wanted to check out this Drum Corps thing.

When I was growing up my view of Corps was different. My father had spent 15 years marching with the Hershey Chocolatiers in the 50's and 60's who sponsored the Hershey show every year So every year my drum corps experience as a kid in the 70's was going to Hershey Stadium sitting with probably 10,000 people and watching the best corps in DCA. I thought when I turn 16 I will join a corps and perform in front of 10,000 every weekend. And I discovered that that was an exception rather than the norm. However Drum corps especially DCA in the south isn't close to that yet, I don't think DCA draws those kinds of crowds anywhere these days.

But the good part is that I think DCA South is finding its spot, distance is still a factor, but there are enough corps and enough experience to make DCA south a viable product. Rather than shoot for some lofty goal and have show the way they have been done for decades in the North they seem to have found something that works for the market that they are in. I am really hoping that the Southern classic is not a one and done deal and that maybe in while it will be the 10th annual Southern Classic.

[UNCGQ]

I'll chime in to thank totaleefree for his kind words, and add that he was an award presented due to his amazingly generous support of the event, even without direct ties to any of the groups participating. Simply a fan of the activity who wants to see it do well. Our hat is off to you!

The primary motivation for the 'home show' was as alluded to. It's a hard thing to answer the question of "where can I see a competition?" with "in a different state, six to twelve hours away". Members deserve the opportunity to perform in front of their friends and family in a competitive setting, and we're happy to have made the initial steps to regularly providing that experience.

In terms of the 'financials', the only real goal for year one is to 'not lose money', and we're happy to say that we were successful in that goal. The show may prove in the future to be a small financial positive to the organization, and we'll make efforts to make the show a larger 'undertaking' in future years, (attempting to bring more corps to town, expand promotion, etc.), but to be able to add another date on the 'competitive calendar' which doesn't cost ten thousand dollars due to travel, and one that is 'local' to the organization, that's a significant bonus in the 'member experience' category and one that's hard to place value on.

The other upside is to be able to 'introduce' DCA to North Carolina, as that's the largest factor we face in growing the organization and the activity in general. "What is DCA?" and "what is drum corps" (to a lesser, but measurable degree) are two issues we face operating an such an organization in this region of the country. There is a great 'culture of drum corps' in the north east that's been around for many decades, and while we don't expect a few DCI/DCA corps will change that, being able to place a reasonably-priced, local event in front of those who are curious as to what DCA is, goes a long way in helping spread the word about the activity.

From our perspective it seemed to be a great night, the weather cooperated (as much as it could have expected to) and we can't thank enough all those who helped us show North Carolina what DCA is. Mike Williams, Director of Bands at Cape Fear High School, all the folks at that school who helped out, all of the volunteers who showed up to staff the event, all of the visiting corps for being amazing guests (Sun Devils, Coastal Surge, Alliance) and last but certainly not least, thanks all the folks who ventured out to pay money to watch a DCA show. Thanks to all and we hope to see everybody next year!!!

-Larry Harper, Jr.

Executive Director

Carolina Gold