Spandy

Dartmouth High School (their 2018 drumline show)

Sonus Brass Theater too, they are officially a program of Shenandoah Sound

Gaines came on in 2017 but didn't write the drill until the next year

It looks like it is manually controlled, at least for now. In the high cam from San Antonio you can see members going over to the prop each time it turns on or off

Prelims has been in the evening since my first championships weekend in 2005 (except 2014). 07 and 08 both started at 2pm according to some old dcp posts I dug up

Reminds me of a more polished version of what they wore in 2015:

Announced today:

There is not a rule against it. There used to be a rule regarding the number of members a DCA corps could add after DCI season ended, but that has since been nixed.

I'm simply relaying what was told to us at the time. Perhaps other new corps applying for membership have had different experiences.

I'm on staff for a DCA corps. As such, I received a copy of the rule book, along with specific instructions not to distribute it outside my corps. DCA is very picky about who has access to it. When we were reapplying to DCA for the 2014 season, we asked for a copy of the book so we could design our show to fit the rules, and were denied access to it. Only member corps are allowed.

DCA considers corps international if they come from outside North America, so Grennies and other Canadian corps were eligible for full membership.

The information is notoriously difficult to get a hold of, even for new corps who are applying for membership. I don't blame anyone for remembering the older version of the rules and not being able to find an update.

To clear up some confustion, from the 2017-2018 rule book: Order of Performance (Prelims) Corps will appear in the order of their highest score during the regular season at DCA sanctioned contests, with the highest scoring corps appearing last. If a corps has no DCA sanctioned contest score, but has a score from a DCI competition scored on DCA sheets, that will be their seeding score. All ties will be decided by drawing. In the absence of the availability of a seeding score for a competing corps, order of appearance shall be any unseeded Associate Member corps, followed by seeded Associate Member corps, followed by unseeded Full Member corps, and finally by seeded Full Member Corps as per the following: Associate Member corps – Unseeded Associate Member corps will draw for the earliest positions. Full Member corps – Unseeded Full Member corps will appear after seeded Associate Member corps and will draw for position. Exception - An approved, audited corps in good standing with DCA may hold a sanctioned, judged DCA contest with only one DCA approved corps in attendance. This show will be judged by an approved DCA judging panel in a venue that would normally host a DCA contest with multiple participants. The host corps must invite all DCA corps to participate, but if the host corps is the only participant, and they are willing to take the entire burden of the financial cost to host a show with them as the only competitive corps, DCA shall sanction the show and use the judged score appropriately.

I think it's pretty clear that Jeff is referring to the years Class A has had more corps, like in 2010 when it was bigger than Open Class

I'm sorry, I phrased that poorly and didn't mean to offend. Thank you for supporting small corps, both financially and in person. Very often it feels like there are not many who do appreciate us, which is why, to me at least, having an arena with meaningful results, where we can push each other to perform and to grow, is so very important. Of course there are many small corps that don't last; losing a key group of members or source of funding can quickly sink small operations like that, especially when so many are traveling so far to participate. I can't see how eliminating Class A would help that though, I don't see it doing anything but discouraging groups from showing up in the first place. And open class corps aren't immune, several perennial finalists have folded in that time as well.

I'm not sure how many Class A-sized corps would want to drive halfway across the country (note: all but one this year are from outside the NE) to get ~12th-17th place in front of a practically empty stadium every year. Groups like Chops, Govies, Southern Knights, and previously Atlanta CV, Alliance, Vigilantes, Gulf Coast Sound, High Country Brass, or SoCal Dream may not have considered DCA to be worth their time and money if they would have had to go head-to-head with the big boys right off the bat (yes, even 80 members seems big when you're tallying up at around 45). Having a venue where we can actually compete and be rewarded with groups of a similar size is a huge and unique experience. If DCA were to stop providing that for us we may as well stay local and do DCI or SoundSport. I can't speak to the exact reasons Class A was proposed and accepted (I was in jr high and had never heard of drum corps), but I know the voting member corps at the time must have seen some value in it. After it started DCA grew to its highest participation level ever in 2005, and now we've seen corps like Atlanta CV, Fusion Core, and White Sabers build off their Class A success and become serious forces in Open Class. Maybe it's not as apparent to outsiders, but for us small corps having Class A is hugely important.

That's the thing though, if Govies go on with the rest of class A first, then they wouldn't be in the same block as the open class corps they are actually scoring closer to. Their score would already be locked in. Obviously there will never be a perfect system, but considering there are very real benefits at stake for making top 10 regardless of class (full DCA membership, cash bonus), I like that seeding is also done regardless of class.

Me too, but ours was plaid. There was also one tied to the frame of our truck for a long time. I know it survived the switch to our new trailer a few years ago, but I am not sure if it is still in there now.

But the Class A corps can still qualify for voting membership if they get one of the 10 highest scores, and having them automatically go on before all open class corps could be disadvantageous in that regard.

Final update! Every corps' most recent score is also their highest, so these will be what is used for seeding at Prelims.

And another update including scores from tonight

Belated update from LAST weekend's scores...

Didn't BD do that this year?

He announced it on his facebook as well. I don't know him personally, but from his posts he seems to be very passionate about the corps, his students there, and the activity in general.

If the 2017 show were performed completely as written, but with only one uniform throughout, then yes I believe the visual effect score would suffer. It's also possible the visual proficiency score would benefit from being able to read the feet and drill easier in the first half of the show. Comparing this to other seasons without uniform changes and/or with the traditional uniform, is disingenuous because the designers would find other ways to generate effect. The Cavaliers would not have been as dominant in the 2000's if they wore white pants/shoes and dark tops/hats. Their entire marching and drill style was designed to de-emphasize cleanliness in the feet and legs, and was all about the oversized white shoulders and hats lining up on their dots. Crown in 2012 and Boston in 2014 were repeatedly slammed (on here at least) because the lack of contrast in their uniform colors made their tight, complex drill difficult to read. Do you think multiple casual observers on DCP noticed that and the viusal analysis judge didn't? I'm not so sure. Of course there are many factors the judges consider, so the actual effect on the final score is probably minuscule at best, but we had contests determined by as little as 1/80th of a point this year. Even the tiniest bump could be the difference.