Does anyone in drum corps think this way?

[garfield]

Hey, I caught up!

There are too many points to respond to, but my understanding is that while the number of contests is down, the actual number of corps is rising steeply the last two years, and the number of attendees has risen, as has been said. Whether these trends will continue and what they mean are separate issues.

Regarding the bolded statement above: If by non-affiliated you mean not present because of a current corps member, then I think most of the audience is non-affiliated. The Rome, NY show has no local corps, but still pretty much fills the stands.

On the other hand, if you are referring to people who were at one time affiliated with a drum corps, then I would say yes that is most of the audience, but I would then add that IMO it is indeed enough to sustain the activity at the current level, all things being equal. Which, of course, they are not.

My point is, I don't see a desperate need to attract a new kind of audience. The activity has always produced audience from former members (and their families and friends). So attracting more members to join more corps now should be the most reliable way to attract a bigger audience a few years later. Is there another "kind of" audience drum corps could attract? Drum corps is dope to music and dance students and maybe teenagers in general, but seems like a big yawn to everybody else I've shown it to. The muggles just don't seem to get it...

Nice reference. You must read either JK Rowling or The Chive.

(I thought you were caught up?)

Again, I'm not suggesting any plan or approach whatsoever. If it's the existing market (marching kids), then OK. If it's new fans from outside the activity, so be it.

I make no expectations of what should or shouldn't be done. I'm asking if anyone has any vision of what should be done. Wasn't it you who said the directors have no desire at all to grow the activity?

[HornTeacher]

Nice reference. You must read either JK Rowling or The Chive.

(I thought you were caught up?)

Again, I'm not suggesting any plan or approach whatsoever. If it's the existing market (marching kids), then OK. If it's new fans from outside the activity, so be it.

I make no expectations of what should or shouldn't be done. I'm asking if anyone has any vision of what should be done. Wasn't it you who said the directors have no desire at all to grow the activity?

All well and good. And since you have been placing forth the question...

Do you have any suggestions?

Edit: Never mind...you answered it in the last paragraph of your post above (#91). My mistake.

Edited April 21, 2015 by HornTeacher

[Pete Freedman]

Nice reference. You must read either JK Rowling or The Chive.

(I thought you were caught up?)

Again, I'm not suggesting any plan or approach whatsoever. If it's the existing market (marching kids), then OK. If it's new fans from outside the activity, so be it.

I make no expectations of what should or shouldn't be done. I'm asking if anyone has any vision of what should be done. Wasn't it you who said the directors have no desire at all to grow the activity?

I think the BOD's desire to grow the activity is a bit like a politician's desire to reduce the budget. They may want to do it, but it's never quite in their interest to actually do it. They want to grow the activity, but they need a new tuba. And in a way it's the same money, because they're haggling with DCI over the money split.

Purely my (probably incorrect) speculation. But doesn't it fit the evidence?

[GUARDLING]

I think you'd find many here talking about and considering that exact thing.

The last I understood, it was a completely self-sufficient effort that required little or no funding from the DCI coffers. So, it's reasonable that this part of the vision of drum corps coming from DCI, right?

Im talking about the activity in general not funding etc etc at the moment. Im saying gone will be the days of the stadium, outdoor football field shows BUT more like the WGI WIND EXPERIENCE. and this would be for some very good reasons in select minds. does growing always mean bigger?. Growing can be mere survival .

does it work? Maybe , who knows , sustainable? time will always tell. Does growth mean getting bigger or restructuring?

All points I have heard in my circles for several years already. Of course with several different opinions.

[cixelsyd]

Really, that's not what I'm proposing (in fact I'm not proposing anything!)

Not proposing anything? You started this thread, and in your first few posts, you called the whole PBR-meets-TV thing an "obvious success path", and suggested DCI do away with 501c3 status. I think both qualify as proposing something.

You suggest that it be me who puts a vision down on paper and sell it to the BOD to adopt and I would ask: Isn't that why there is an ED and Board Chair in DCI? They just went through elections to name new positions that they, obviously, take very seriously.

Again, you seem to think the DCI office staff have no vision. I will address this below.

Punkin Chunkin and now the PBR are but examples, as you state. But they are examples of what "Sounds Crazy - Might Work" can produce.

So are SoundSport and Drumline Battle.

At at the center of both activities I'd bet there was a laser-like focus on the goal that never got buried in the doubt of naysayers or those comfortable in the status quo.

Then once again, I must ask why you expect DCI to do what you describe.

DCI is an agency created to serve a collection of diverse member corps. They have never had a laser focus, and never will. Their entire staff, all the way up to the executive director/"CEO", serve at the pleasure of the membership. And the membership have no unified "vision" - they could never even agree on defining what "drum corps" is, and thus all DCI mission statements and marketing material dance around what the product actually is.

If you want a laser focus, you need a dictatorship - an organization where the CEO calls the shots, and the corps join on his terms. Drum corps has had such dictatorships before (VFW, for example), and it can have them again if the dictatorship offers a significantly better deal to corps than the status quo.

So getting back to "vision", my contention is that in the governance structure of DCI, it is entirely possible that the membership simply cannot en"vision" selling out to something like what you allude to with PBR. DCI went through a similar experience with ESPN, and it did not work out for that very reason. It is entirely possible that the DCI staff, working within the parameters of their situation, have developed another "vision" - a vision of a DCI that is diversified beyond just 150-member competitive field corps. They have found a way to develop new formats like SoundSport and Drumline Battle on their extremely constrained budget. These ideas have the ability to extend DCI participation beyond our continent in ways that have not materialized for the full field corps format due to its size and expense.

You therefore have several paths to the outcome you yearn for. You can continue to call for the DCI monolith to heed your message and make a $100 million TV deal full of transformative format-changing concessions. Or you can get behind an alternative DCI program that already has a more TV-friendly format (SoundSport). Or, some other entity with "vision" can make the deal for a TV-friendly version of music/motion. There is already one other entrant in the alternative format arena (WGI); why should there not be a third?

I see we're down to, what, 103 shows on the tour this year? And how many corps? At what point is relevance stretched to snapping and our perennial sponsors turn their backs? Each of them knows how to measure success, I guarantee you, and THEY know that "Stable" is just another word for stagnation and slow death.

As others are already pointing out, while the number of shows is "stable", their attendance is reportedly up. There is more definitive data for the recent rise in not only number of corps, but number of members per corps. There is nothing in those trends that suggests sponsors are on the verge of turning their backs on DCI. We even have a drop in fuel prices that is likely to make touring less costly in 2015. Your reports of death are premature.

[Fran Haring]

Haworth noted that the organization’s fans follow the bulls sometimes more closely than the riders. He noted that in ESPN the Magazine’s “body” feature last year that a bull named Bushwacker was touted as possessing “the Baddest Body in Sports.”

My friends with the DCA corps of the same name might get a kick out of this!!! LOL

[N.E. Brigand]

Your reports of death are premature.

Certainly, but how premature? While there has been a modest recent rebound, the numbers of corps, for instance, is still well below the count of ten years ago. To the degree that garfield's post is simply a warning against complacency, it is well founded.

[garfield]

Not proposing anything? You started this thread, and in your first few posts, you called the whole PBR-meets-TV thing an "obvious success path", and suggested DCI do away with 501c3 status. I think both qualify as proposing something.

Again, you seem to think the DCI office staff have no vision. I will address this below.

So are SoundSport and Drumline Battle.

Then once again, I must ask why you expect DCI to do what you describe.

DCI is an agency created to serve a collection of diverse member corps. They have never had a laser focus, and never will. Their entire staff, all the way up to the executive director/"CEO", serve at the pleasure of the membership. And the membership have no unified "vision" - they could never even agree on defining what "drum corps" is, and thus all DCI mission statements and marketing material dance around what the product actually is.

If you want a laser focus, you need a dictatorship - an organization where the CEO calls the shots, and the corps join on his terms. Drum corps has had such dictatorships before (VFW, for example), and it can have them again if the dictatorship offers a significantly better deal to corps than the status quo.

So getting back to "vision", my contention is that in the governance structure of DCI, it is entirely possible that the membership simply cannot en"vision" selling out to something like what you allude to with PBR. DCI went through a similar experience with ESPN, and it did not work out for that very reason. It is entirely possible that the DCI staff, working within the parameters of their situation, have developed another "vision" - a vision of a DCI that is diversified beyond just 150-member competitive field corps. They have found a way to develop new formats like SoundSport and Drumline Battle on their extremely constrained budget. These ideas have the ability to extend DCI participation beyond our continent in ways that have not materialized for the full field corps format due to its size and expense.

You therefore have several paths to the outcome you yearn for. You can continue to call for the DCI monolith to heed your message and make a $100 million TV deal full of transformative format-changing concessions. Or you can get behind an alternative DCI program that already has a more TV-friendly format (SoundSport). Or, some other entity with "vision" can make the deal for a TV-friendly version of music/motion. There is already one other entrant in the alternative format arena (WGI); why should there not be a third?

As others are already pointing out, while the number of shows is "stable", their attendance is reportedly up. There is more definitive data for the recent rise in not only number of corps, but number of members per corps. There is nothing in those trends that suggests sponsors are on the verge of turning their backs on DCI. We even have a drop in fuel prices that is likely to make touring less costly in 2015. Your reports of death are premature.

I think you might be confusing me with someone else. I asked if anyone in DCI thinks about success demonstrated by the PBR, and I never suggested that DCI ditch its tax-exempt status.

You say that DCI has no vision, and even give examples of how they have no collective vision not even being able to agree on a collective definition of what the activity actually is. OK, so far so good.

Then you suggest the only way to develop a collective vision is with a dictator. Wow. Jack Welch might disagree with that notion, or the PBR for that matter, along with me. Your notion is surely yours, but it's far from the only answer to a "vision". Are you suggesting that the original DCI founders didn't have a collective vision about life outside of the VFW?

You describe your view as being "selling out". This is just speculation on your account and a demonstration of history bias - you suggest that the results from the past are the results one can expect in the future. I wonder if you'd claim the same about DCI's management of the activity.

You correctly say that DCI staff serve at the pleasure of the BOD. But then you say that DCI staff are implementing an effort that works in direct competition to the 150-member corps that make up its "employer". How do you envision that to be in light of little or no funding dedicated to the effort? It sounds as though you are suggesting DCI staff are working outside of the mandate that the member corps give them. Am I reading that correctly?

Can you point to anything that would substantiate that DCI's global Soundsport effort has helped, or will help, the member corps in this country? Wouldn't that be the definition of success of the effort in the eyes of the BOD that employs them?

The rest of your post suggest what I should do or support. Again, it's not about me is it? (But, to the point, I organized and held the first all-amateur drum line battle at our show, and one participant group has since become the beginnings of an actual DCI corps). But your presumptions about what must necessarily take place for the activity to expand to a higher, more secure level is just more history bias on your part. And it's not about you, either.

It's about DCI's vision. If it's SoundSport and Drumline battle, I'd love to hear your impression of the results so far.

And so you know it's not YOU I'm interested in, you're the second to suggest that the BOD has no collective vision at all.

Edited April 21, 2015 by garfield

[perc2100]

Well, which is it? There aren't enough "non-affiliated" event attendees to support the activity. If MM's paying dues, and parents paying for tickets, is the mother's milk of the activity, how do your two statements square with one another?

IDK, except DCI stated this fall that their attendance was higher this year than the previous year's, and I think IIRC that attendance has been steadily increasing the last few years in all aspects of live (in ALL DCI -sponsored events, not just Finals weekend), movie theater, and live streaming. And recently IIRC DCI has increased groups and not lost groups so right now, currently, DCI is healthier than they have been in previous decades maybe.

[Pete Freedman]

I would add to this that the BOD actually does have a laser focused vision; to max out the skills of their 150 corps members. That's always the vision, as far as I can tell as a fan, and they do a pretty remarkable job at it. In fact, I suspect these kids improve faster during the Summer than Juilliard kids do during a given 2.5 months of their education. Even at Juilliard, I suspect the kids spend most of their practice time alone in practice rooms doing exercises. And even if that works as well as the pressure of drum corps, the Jiulliard kids probably backslide during the summer somewhat. No full-tour drum corps kid ever back-slid during the summer. (I realize this example is probably controversial, my point is that drum corps is extremely impressive for an activity outside the education loop.)

Better yet, their vision has something critical that few vision statements have; metrics of success. The scoring, in both difficulty and execution, gives a corps director some idea of how well they've max-ed out the students that year (relative to what they anticipated, of course). It's crude, yes, but it's a metric.

I'm not sure DCI has metrics-based vision. Can we make a statement that is demonstrably not true today that could be true in, say, five years?

It could be:

- At least 75 DCI corps.

- At least 20 full-time professional performing artists from among the previous year's age-outs.

- At least 100 full-time paid professional performing arts teachers from among the previous year's age-outs.

- At least 500 full-time employees in professional occupations from among the previous year's age-outs.

- At least 50% of randomly surveyed American high school students reporting seeing a full drum corps performance on video or live.

These are just examples obviously. But good vision commits to a risk, and to measuring success and failure.

Rambling post? You bet. But it all seemed to make sense at the time. Back to the original point, IMO the actual vision is indeed clear, but it's focused on each corps.