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Punkin Chunkin


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Maybe (back to the reality TV show thing) it would be cool to take a member or two of a few of the corps fighting for the ring and/or a few from other corps. Follow them around for the summer. There's plenty of stuff that people can relate to as well as find completely absurd, as well as funny. Audience members could laugh at silly drumline antics and laundry day mishaps, and get into the competition. I had a blog that even my non drum corps friends found hilarious and interesting this summer. Just have to portray it right and get the dollars and it could be really popular.

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Maybe (back to the reality TV show thing) it would be cool to take a member or two of a few of the corps fighting for the ring and/or a few from other corps. Follow them around for the summer. There's plenty of stuff that people can relate to as well as find completely absurd, as well as funny. Audience members could laugh at silly drumline antics and laundry day mishaps, and get into the competition. I had a blog that even my non drum corps friends found hilarious and interesting this summer. Just have to portray it right and get the dollars and it could be really popular.

Yep. It would be an absolute winner, correctly produced.

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Yep. It would be an absolute winner, correctly produced.

I detest agreeing with you, but we are right. For DCI to break into the mainstream, this is the way to go.

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My point is that even if that were true, perhaps they aren't interested in doing what would need to be done to appeal to a broader fan base. Drum corps, as is, is not appealing to the general public. I'm not sure I want to see drum corps that would be.

Even if that fan base were limited to just marching arts?

I had no idea what "Punkin Chunkin" was until I saw it on TV.

The most expensive rig in that competition cost $150-thousand, and we put million dollar corps on the field. I can guarantee you that the Punkin Chunkin "organizing committee" (PCI?) didn't pay for their air time last night.

Now, no offense to the beer-drinking chunkers out there, but their activity is not exactly "High-brow". They simply had a group of people who talked to the right underwriters.

Why doesn't DCI? It's beyond me with so much drama in DC that they couldn't attract ad dollars if they spread their wings and presented it in a more "modern" way.

If DCI doesn't want to attract a larger audience, as you suggest, then maybe the G7 had a point after all.

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I think if the DCI BOD was seriouse about their future, they would figure it out. In my personal experience, a huge part of my initial experience of DC, was when i watched it as a youngin on ESPN. And i am sure there are countless others. There were 18,435 high schools in 2004 http://www.betterhighschools.org/pubs/documents/usfactsheetandreferences_final_080406.pdf and i can only imagine that number has grown since then. So lets just say 19,000 high schools in the country. (I will pull the rest of the statistics out of my butt) I would say that a majority have some form of a marching band. Lets say 12,000. And average size marching band after massive bands, and dinky bands, is roughly, 60. Thats 720,000 potential watchers, given that 24% percent of kids have on parent and the rest 2 or more http://www.nytimes.com/1988/01/28/garden/24-of-us-children-live-with-just-one-parent.html thats a potential of, im guessing, cuz i have no calculator, thats what, another 720,000 potential viewers. So we are talking 1,440,000 potential viewers NOT INCLUDING alumni, perhaps siblings, and the DC world. So there is definitely a fan base enough to make it happen IF advertised, and handled correctly. And 720,000 of those viewers, are still in marching band, and can be drawn into DCI just by watching it.

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I detest agreeing with you, but we are right. For DCI to break into the mainstream, this is the way to go.

Yes, this agreeing business is way too scary, Jeff. I'm melting, I'm melting. :rolleyes:

One other note in support of what's being said here, along with BD9....my offspring had a "membercam" and blog with BD in 2010 and he and his running buddy had no idea how popular it was until they played the Rose Bowl early in the tour and spent quite some time after signing autographs.....not so much for being in BD, but more for their membercam shenanigans.

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Even if that fan base were limited to just marching arts?

I had no idea what "Punkin Chunkin" was until I saw it on TV.

The most expensive rig in that competition cost $150-thousand, and we put million dollar corps on the field. I can guarantee you that the Punkin Chunkin "organizing committee" (PCI?) didn't pay for their air time last night.

Now, no offense to the beer-drinking chunkers out there, but their activity is not exactly "High-brow". They simply had a group of people who talked to the right underwriters.

Why doesn't DCI? It's beyond me with so much drama in DC that they couldn't attract ad dollars if they spread their wings and presented it in a more "modern" way.

If DCI doesn't want to attract a larger audience, as you suggest, then maybe the G7 had a point after all.

Is that your final answer? :ph34r:

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Night crawlers are bait, too. ph34r.gif

And BTW, I think every corps, EVERY corps, want to attract more dollars to the activity.

Notice that I said EVERY corps, not just the G7.

When the activity as a whole is made interesting through creative use of TV (as discussed here in your most excellent thread) every corps and perhaps many high school music programs will benefit. It begins with interest and interest begins with designing a means of connecting what's going on inside the corps to a broader audience. EVERY corps has a story and a personality, they all have equal potential in being interesting.

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Well, it only took 19 posts for someone to highlight the important sentence.

Canon Cameras and Discover Card. They were convinced to underwrite the Punkin show.

Even with the differences in the activity formats, can someone come up with a marketing idea that would attract corporate underwriting?

Neither Canon nor Discover grow pumpkins, so don't limit the idea to horn or drum manufacturers.

But everyone who's an executive with Canon and Discover Card has probably carved a jack-o-lantern.

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