Fran Haring
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Days Won
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Posts posted by Fran Haring
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A sad day indeed. Truly the end of an era.
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On 11/18/2023 at 12:15 AM, Jeff Ream said:
i think with the show Sunday at Reading, Allentown will just be World Class corps. and yeah there's fewer shows...the season lost 3 weeks.
Can't predict the future as to whether this new all-age thing will work long-term... but I'm hoping that perhaps the all-age corps will come out a bit earlier in the years to come, given the shorter timeline.
And by "come out a bit earlier"... I mean come out reasonably fully prepared.
Just call me Mr. Perfect World. 😆
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3 minutes ago, LabMaster said:
DCI had absolutely nothing to do with the demise of local corps in eastern Massachusetts. Organizations that supported local corps simply did not want to support them any more. It is a fallacy to believe otherwise. Amvets, VFW, American Legion, churches just let corps fizzle out. Contributing to that was the growth of many many other things kids wanted to do. Sports expansion was a huge alternative to local corps. Many more participatory opportunities for many more kids. 135 corps in eastern Mass. in the early 70’s. Gone by the 90’s and it wasn’t DCI that did it.
Yep. My local-circuit junior corps from NJ, 1970s, our director wanted nothing to do with DCI. The corps survived through the 1980 season before disbanding. And DCI was not to blame. The corps simply ran out of money and members.
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Haven't read this whole thread, so this might have been mentioned already... but the Cadets losing that USBands revenue stream could not have been helpful.
I know... Captain Obvious here.
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On 10/14/2023 at 12:54 PM, 2000Cadet said:
Cadets helped to take an 17 year old teenager, who spent his childhood surrounded by drugs, gangs, and typical inner-city problems, and allowed him to see what life should be like. If it weren't for Cadets, he wouldn't have spent 21 years in the Navy created a life for himself that's worthy of celebration. That kid was me.
The Cadets mean EVERYTHING to me. If they need to take a year off to get things back in shape, then so be it. I'm sad that this is happening, but with the continuing rising costs of everything, I can neither be surprised nor naive that this won't happen to other corps, because with the current trend, it will.
One of the best posts I've ever read on any of these forums.
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12 hours ago, Weaklefthand4ever said:
I was thinking exactly the same thing Fran. Find out your needs and then hire great people to fill those needs. Run the part you know and manage the people who run the other parts to ensure alignment. No one person is an island.
I sometimes have wondered what Mr. Cook... a total gentleman and hugely successful business person... might have been thinking in those DCI meetings when Star was around, listening to some directors, whose corps could barely pay their bills, pontificating on how DCI should be run. LOL. "Get me outta here!!!" 😂
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7 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:
look what Ted Swaldo built in Ohio
And Bill Cook in Indiana.
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Bob would be a great choice!
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18 hours ago, kevingamin said:
Let me just say that I am a MUCH better announcer now than when I started at OIPA (sorry, Chad). Having the very detailed scripts I've used for USBands and PIMBA has helped.
The USBands folks... Sean King, Justin Heimbecker and the rest... were great to work with, and I agree, those scripts were a big help!
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On 9/5/2023 at 8:32 PM, JimF-LowBari said:
Lol every time I heard “that ain’t drum corps” I’d say “first time I heard that was…. 1975!!!”.
Heh... at a YEA gig in MD I worked for several years in the 2000s, a guy would come up to me after the show every year and complain about the DCI corps. "Not what it used to be"... etc., etc.
I wondered why this guy bothered paying to see this show every year. It was not like his attendance would magically turn back the clock to 1970. 😂
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OK... regarding this whole "announcer script and so forth" stuff, some background from the guy who did the DCA gig for... well... decades, and apologies for this being long:
For years, I wrote my own script for the DCA regular-season shows, prelims and finals that I worked, simply because no one else was doing it, unlike DCI, which provides those scripts to their announcers. NOT a knock on the DCA staff... remember, they were ALL part-time at their positions. (When I worked DCI shows, it was nice to have that script work done for me.)
In 2009, a friend who had worked for DCI was doing PR work for DCA, so he wrote the prelims/finals script for me. And starting in 2011, when DCA pulled me off the prelims show for reasons that have never been fully explained to me (my 2011-2018 DCA years are a story for another day, and I will leave it at that here...LOL), my friend Steve Anderman, who was now the prelims announcer, began writing the scripts for both of us, and did a great job.
The prelims scripts, regardless of who was writing them, always had drop-in announcements about what else was on the schedule that weekend... the alumni show, finals schedule, etc.
All the years I worked either DCA or DCI gigs, if I had a question about a pronunciation, etc., I would make sure to ask for help.
And yes, I plead guilty to making some absolutely boneheaded comments over the microphone through the years... it's a live show, and sometimes stuff happens. It sucks, but it happens. To any announcer. I also appreciated the confidence some folks had in me to... well... "be Fran" when working a show. LOL. My YEA gigs, my friends there (one in particular) would hand me the script and tell me I had the leeway to use my own style when appropriate.
I didn't see any DCA shows this year, in person or on Box5, so I have no idea what went on in Rochester, and it ain't my business anymore. I'll just say... announcing drum corps is nowhere near as easy as it might seem to the armchair quarterbacks out there.
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On 9/7/2023 at 5:59 PM, Jeff Ream said:
well let's be honest.....most were in Rochester/Williamsport/Scranton/Syracuse/wherever on Friday rehearsing- under the old format
Some were there the Thursday of that weekend.
Even if the 2024 show is "Saturday only"... there's still the travel involved to get there. The corps won't be pulling into town Saturday AM and heading right to the stadium. LOL
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On 8/20/2023 at 8:45 AM, joe c said:
The incentives just changed in a pretty meaningful way.
Imma bet looking forward Indianapolis lights an earlier fire for all concerned.
I hope that's the case!
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Along the lines of what Jeff and W said earlier... I hope the compressed season will more or less force the corps to put an achievable product on the field earlier than they have in years past.
Shows that are unfinished, or barely finished in mid-July... and thus just starting to really get it together by the time the new DCA title show happens... might not make much of a good impression on the DCI fans who come out to see what the all-age product is all about.
I have no skin in this game anymore, so I hope all goes well for my friends still involved with DCA.
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On 8/7/2023 at 1:12 PM, Ashontheinternet said:
i think something here to consider is that our friend barry might not know how long he will be fighting the effects of his illness. maybe barry is worried if he takes time away from the job he does, he might not get the opportunity to do it again. personally, i didn't hate his announcing and i thought it was way better than some other announcers ive heard in the past. i respect barry for pushing through and pursuing the job in spite of his situation. it takes guts to put yourself in front of tens of thousands of people to make announcements, and i respect the effort.
Barry's a great guy, for sure.
I'm not a fan of "announcer bashing"... on this site, or anywhere.
From personal experience...it is not an easy job.
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I'm enjoying the titles/nicknames the OP comes up with for the various shows!
Chris Berman would be proud. 😂
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36 minutes ago, HockeyDad said:
I don’t think AI would “get” emoting.
Hmmm, maybe it’s not a bad idea…."Overwrought!!! Over-acting!!! Does not compute!!!" 😂
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45 minutes ago, Jeff Ream said:
So you’re not announcing Kingston?
Probably not. I think I'm not in Bridgeport that weekend. 😂
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Great stuff as always, W!!!
Heh... at last weekend's alumni show in PA (Brenda's with the Hanover Lancers, so wherever she is, I am...LOL), several people asked me which DCA show I'd be at this summer. The answer was "none." 😄
I wish my DCA friends nothing but the best, but my days there will remain in the rear-view mirror.
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The "my fiancee is a Crossmen alum" part of me says... well... Crossmen. But it looks like they're off to a rough start. (Just from what I've read. Haven't seen anyone this season.)
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Last I checked, the Stealthmen are undefeated.
Or ARE they???? 👽👽👽
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18 hours ago, Chief Guns said:
I think at finals next month, we will see four corps crack the 97+ scoring barrier for the first time in DCI History with (in no particular order) BD/Bloo/BAC/Crown.
We came close to this feat in 2008 and 2013.
What a great season this is shaping up to be.
I don't follow the activity anywhere near as much as I used to, but I still am impressed at how the overall quality level of the DCI product just seems to get better and better, year in and year out.
We can have our discussions/disagreements about whether we like this or that... electronics, choice of show themes and costumes, visual vs. music, entertaining/not entertaining, etc., but man, the top 17 corps, and beyond, are so strong on the field. (Off the field, a topic for another day. LOL)
Today's 17th-place corps was a solid finalist not too many years ago, and so forth. And breaking into the top 5 or 6... that is rarified air.
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Since I have a number of friends who have been involved with the Crossmen, including my fiancee Brenda (Crossmen color guard 1980-81), I hope the corps is back in Finals this year.
I'll let you all argue over the other 11 finalist spots. 😂
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11 hours ago, Jeff Ream said:
well you have a contract it's tough to get out of. but really after Annapolis is when you saw the number of corps slipped under 20, and by 19 the Labor Day issue reared its head in a big way.
IMO Annapolis might have been the high-water mark for DCA, in terms of being at a top-shelf venue in a great city and big combined market (Annapolis/ DC/Baltimore). And major airports nearby.
Yes, it was expensive for DCA to be there... but, and hindsight is always 20/20, I think it might have been DCA's last, best opportunity to grab a bigger slice of the pie, so to speak.
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Cadets and bankruptcy
in DCI World Class Corps Discussions
Posted
This reminds me of a scene early on in "The Manchurian Candidate."