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Will Wildwood Be An Exhibition Only?


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I totally understand that the season is only two months long. That being said however, you shouldn't look at how long the season is but how short the amount of rehearsal time is available to the corps to prepare a modern competitive show by the middle of June. As was stated earlier, I would venture to guess that almost all corps these days are a revolving door of membership up until June. Kids come in...kids go out. whether it is school, vacation, college auditions...whatever. The membership is constantly in flux until much later in the spring and early summer than many realize. You spend much of your time re-teaching music and drill to get the latest batch of newbies into the show. It's just a fact encapsulating modern DCA drum corps.

Perhaps it is different for Bucs, Cabs, Minnesota, C2, etc. but it is certainly a fact of life for us in CV. Not an excuse...not going to cry in our beer over it...just a fact that we struggle with.

Dan

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Maybe a compromise would have been for Fran to announce, "Corps X and Corps Y have opted not to have their score announced." It's just sad to see our activity being squeezed smaller in length from both ends. We have performers busy with other things until June 25 one end, then again before Labor Day Weekend on the other. Add to this all the complications with performance and broadcast fees and we have pressure unlike ever before in history.

"The Incredible Shrinking Drum Corps"

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John, I have a question. Was it the sponsors wish or was it DCA's decision to have the first show not scored? Dan, numbers given "this early in the season" ? The season is now only two months long. DCA is not like DCI with weekday shows.

Without revealing too much about how the sausage is made, and at the risk of making Al Katz mad at me (what else is new), I know this was discussed at least a month ago' and that the idea to make the show exhibition-only with judges came from outside the Cabs organization.

My *personal* opinion is that I'm fine with a show of this nature. The idea of performing and then having a no-pressure conversation with the panel is enticing. I wouldn't want any numbers written down, because that would defeat the entire purpose...even if they weren't for public release.

That said, this simple conversation devolving into calls for DCI to take over or for corps to change their methodology in order to fit someone's ideas of what the season should be like is laughable. Good lord, people, it's band. Relax, the corps all know what hey are doing, as Dan so eloquently stated.

Making Wildwood an exhibition isn't going to destroy the activity or ruin anyone's day.

Edited by Kamarag
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The staffs will bet feedback and a critique where they can hear about what is working and what is not. That is all they can hope to get at this point.

Dan hits the nail on the head here- and what team wants to come out for a number and not have something they feel truly comfortable with presenting for that number?

Some of these corps likely need the input rather than get locked into a bad number- they want to hear whether certain sections are working from a design standpoint and why not, even though the performance levels might not be that good- a judge can still react and say something's not really going to work, even when it's clean and why. They can also reinforce something- it may not click now, but when you get A, B and C to line up- it'll be great!

I think there could be another reason as well:

Looking at some DCP comments over the years here regarding Wildwood, there's a perception that corps are getting locked into placements and gaps they can't shake out of no matter what they do. I don't think it's a reality personally, but this does help to allay those concerns and fears. They can use this show to see what's happening, get some rough idea of what needs to be done, fix what can be fixed for the next contest... then get out there and see what happens. No more "Well, there's historically been a x.yz point gap between Corps B and Corps C at Wildwood and that's pretty much decided the entire season" excuses or comments. :satisfied:

What this DOES do is this- there's the early Lehman show, where there'll be some numbers put down by Sky, Bush, WS, and Fusion. There'll be some numbers down to work out of.

It gives Bucs, Cabs, and C2 2 more weeks to totally prepare for Ijamsville. No excuses, no slotting gripes, and also gives everyone on the panel a very good fresh look at the Southern DCA Teams head to head to see where they stack up against these corps.

I just got my tickets for Ijamsville, top row 50. I'll be there. I think it'll be rather intense but excellent. The corps that can keep their heads on, not get nervous, do their job, and show some hunger will be the ones who I think shake out the best.

Speaking of Dan, I need to pester him. In a good way. :satisfied:

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Word from the Skyliner competing corps was they finished their entire show this weekend.

I saw and heard Cabs competing corps at Hudson and they seemed ready to me- super clean horns and powerful drums- horns had great balance , great tonality with great range and the tuba line ( may have been missing a few ) had tremendous presence and really anchored the sound well ( IMHO sometimes it doesn't matter how many you have it's a question of how the one's you have play ).

Cabs book is really nice ( musically ). I agree with the comments made by a few that the early season scores seemed to mirror the previous year's results, but maybe as this economy morphs into it's new form local folks will discover DC again.

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Maybe a compromise would have been for Fran to announce, "Corps X and Corps Y have opted not to have their score announced." It's just sad to see our activity being squeezed smaller in length from both ends. We have performers busy with other things until June 25 one end, then again before Labor Day Weekend on the other. Add to this all the complications with performance and broadcast fees and we have pressure unlike ever before in history.

"The Incredible Shrinking Drum Corps"

I wonder if the very nature of the all-age season will need to change, due to all the outside factors that have been well-stated by you, Dan, John, and others here.

Meaning.... I wonder if the season will need to be shortened to, say, a month or so... from, basically late July through Labor Day weekend.... while ensuring that all the corps have performance opportunities every weekend during that period, and to ensure that all the corps have a finished product that is marketable to audiences from Week One through the championships.

Just spit-ballin' here. LOL. And now back to our regularly-scheduled thread. :tongue:

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Fran, I think that the attendance at Wildwood ( no scores) will give some insight to the paying public's willingness to attend shows for a month without placements. Would no scores hurt attendance for the July no score shows? If so, that might hurt the sponsors pocket.

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This thread is hilarious. There certainly seems to be two sets of rules.

I can pull up the old thread if you like. I distinctively remember a corps from the south who asked to be judged exhibition only because they were not ready early in the season and the judges wound up giving them a score instead. When someone from that corps came on here and said something about it yall bashed him and basically told him to pull up his big girl panties and deal with it that if his corps was not ready by the time the season rolls around they wouldn’t be ready by labor day.

We can pull up the Wildwood thread from last year and see this same sort of smack talk about being ready and how you should be ready in November or your not going to be ready come labor day.

So why the double standard????? Don't know who asked for it but if they were not ready they should have either pulled out or taken their lumps like all the corps before them have.

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