Geoff Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 except the decline began while the economy was in a boom. go figure When are you saying the decline started? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowtron Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 yet woodwind players who learned how to play brass filled it out...and didn't want to do it. DCI has been having woodiwnd events at I&E for years now. Many woodwinds march drum corps playing different instruments, yet those I&E categories arent exactly over flowing with participants Who honestly cares about I&E except for a few days in August? The bball/fball comparison is not valid. Those are unique activities. Drum corps is band without woodwinds, or vice versa. Only difference is instrumentation and practice time. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
atlvalet Posted June 27, 2012 Share Posted June 27, 2012 (edited) Who honestly cares about I&E except for a few days in August? The bball/fball comparison is not valid. Those are unique activities. Drum corps is band without woodwinds, or vice versa. Only difference is instrumentation and practice time. Drum Corps used to be unique until people started #$%&ing with it. Regardless of what you think, adding WW to DCI would fundamentally change things. Period. End of story. If you can't see that, well, it looks like MikeD has managed to clone himself :) Drum corps is band without woodwinds, or vice versa. Only difference is instrumentation and practice time. No. Drum corps is not band without woodwinds. It's much deeper than that. Drum Corps attracts the hard core. Drum corps only attracts those who are die hards. There were 128 people in my high school band, and only 2 of us ever marched corps. I marched 'Coats and the other guy marched Magic of Orlando and then Cadets. And it's not just about practice time. It's dedication. Practicing 3-4 hours a day. Most people who march band will never do this. They don't have the mental discipline or the work ethic. And DCI has managed to fumble this core audience away, and tried to cover up said mistake by going after "band people." People who aren't dedicated to the activity. DCI seems to have forgotten about the 80/20 rule. Edited June 27, 2012 by atlvalet 3 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 (edited) The amount of fans claiming they will leave, like in baseball/hockey/basketball disputes is always overstated. They always come back. Always? Guess again.... And some of us feel that DC is unique, just like Bagpipe bands, brass bands, Mummers, etc, etc are unique with their instrumentation and presentation. If the only difference you see between MB and DC is level of talent, fine. But don't try to act as if your opinion (yes opinion) on the matter is a fact. Edited June 28, 2012 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrlandoContraAlum Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 (edited) Yes, and excluding half your core audience from participating is great marketing awareness. How could High School woodwind players possibly be considered DCI's "core audience"???? That makes exactly zero sense. And I WAS a high school WW player (who learned a brass instrument to march corps). The core audience of DCI would be thus: 1. Former Marching Members (with jobs and disposable income) 2. Family members of Current/Former Marching Members 3. People who were somehow otherwise introduced to the medium 4. Current High School Students Edited June 28, 2012 by OrlandoContraAlum Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
OrlandoContraAlum Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 DCI's core audience are not high school band WW players. DCI's core audience are former marching members who bring their family and friends. That has been DCI's primary mistake. And going after some phantom demographic, which would utterly change what DCI is, is not a core audience. It is entirely a gamble, and would eliminate whatever Unique Selling Proposition DCI has left. As a marketing/advertising guy, I love USP's. It makes it easier to sell and recruit. I, however, DO NOT like homogenized parity products. Like toothpaste. And deodorant. And DCI once you let WW's in. And, you know, some on here are WW players who learned how to play brass because they wanted to be in a DCI corps. Great minds, and all that... Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
JimF-LowBari Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 (edited) How could High School woodwind players possibly be considered DCI's "core audience"???? That makes exactly zero sense. And I WAS a high school WW player (who learned a brass instrument to march corps). The core audience of DCI would be thus: 1. Former Marching Members (with jobs and disposable income) 2. Family members of Current Marching Members 3. People who were somehow introduced to the medium 4. Current High School Students Not picking on Shadowtron here but just thought of something.... #1 If HS'ers are a large part of DCI audience or DCI tries to make them a larger percentage of the audience ("core audience" in you will). #2 HS band members get a break on ticket prices at some shows (free tickets?) #3 From what I can tell a very high percentage of MB members do not support or attend shows after they graduate. If DCI becomes MB (best way I can put it) will these ex- members support DCI as badly as the MB are supported by ex-members. Given the above where is the money gonna come from, not all comes from dues of current members. Having tons of HSers at shows is good for publicity and recruitment but having a larger percentage of them at shows means less income due to the cheap/free tickets. Still need the FMMs to support for a period of years. See less of that with #3. Edited June 28, 2012 by JimF-LowBari Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 More members increases lifetime DCI income. That level of participation leads to a long relationshp with the activity. Why not let corps try it? It might only be 2 or 3 and if they're not effective or successful it will go away. As Jeff suggested, if George Hopkins wants to start a Top Tier Marching Band Circuit then he should do so. If the advantages of adding woodwinds are so obvious, then it's a no brainer to either break the Cadets free from DCI and add woodwinds or to start a new group under the YEA umbrella. Surely if anyone can do it, it's YEA. Just tack it onto USBands as a summer circuit. I'm completely serious. If woodwinds will bring in money, then a competing circuit is the right way to go about the experiment you propose. Unless you are proposing increasing corps size to 200 or something, then no more money is going to flow into DCI. There are hundreds of kids who get cut from top-8 corps and they don't stay in the activity, they move on. Add woodwinds and you'll just increase the number of brass players who get cut. If you *are* saying you want to increase corps size to 180 or 200+ to accomodate woodwinds, then you just add problems in terms of finding housing, renting more busses adding significantly more staff... you aren't going to end up making more money. 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Shadowtron Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 How could High School woodwind players possibly be considered DCI's "core audience"???? That makes exactly zero sense. And I WAS a high school WW player (who learned a brass instrument to march corps). The core audience of DCI would be thus: 1. Former Marching Members (with jobs and disposable income) 2. Family members of Current/Former Marching Members 3. People who were somehow otherwise introduced to the medium 4. Current High School Students Where do 1 and 2 come from? HS music programs. And around half are excluded. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
skywhopper Posted June 28, 2012 Share Posted June 28, 2012 Where do 1 and 2 come from? HS music programs. And around half are excluded. By your logic, 95% of high schoolers are excluded. Why restrict it to musicians? 1 Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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