cixelsyd

I will stick on this point, because it represents a whole new level of evil I never even thought could exist in the activity. Not even the Hopocalypse involved "hush money" at any point. Maybe an NDA could be applicable in drum corps at some point. Some things really need to be kept confidential, like the 1975 Muchachos prelim score. But hush money must clear a higher bar. Non-profit funds have to be applied to the mission. If a corps attached non-profit funds to NDAs for sexual abuse, for hypothetical example, that seems like it would be a legal offense by itself.

Would it even be legal for a drum corps non-profit to use its funds for an NDA to cover up other illegal activity?

Wait. Are you saying that (if rumor = truth) NDAs were executed by a drum corps organization? That money was spent by a drum corps non-profit for that purpose?

Will they be closing before, during or after drum corps season?

1. How much of this is difficulty in securing show sites, and how much of it is exercising choice between several suitable venues? Sometimes, shows move seeking a better rental price, or to "right-size" the venue for the expected audience size. 2. I know you didn't mention this, but for those citing economic conditions - the number of venues performing maintenance, turf replacements or other upgrades is a symptom of a properly functioning economy. 3. When open-class shows go TBD, sometimes they end up cancelled. But for world-class, it is exceptionally rare for an event to be cancelled. The member corps made commitments to these events back in the fall, and a matrix of show sponsors coordinated by the DCI office made reciprocal commitments. If the Annapolis show, "presented by USBands", cannot find a venue with all the contacts DCI and USBands have in that department, that would signal something to be concerned about.

This requires a more clever name. Try STEDAC.

I see no record of Cavaliers competing in Buffalo in 1999 either. Maybe you are thinking of the year 2000, in which case Cavaliers won a contest in Buffalo on August 6th. But if that is the case, they did not receive any 20s from the judges that day. Visual performance 18.9; GE visual 19.1.

If the judges had any inkling what was coming in the fall, they would have put Cadets 7th (or possibly even 8th).

The Madison Scouts are so old that they forgot they existed prior to 1938. Evidence of their activity in 1920 was just recently brought to light. On the all-age side, the St. Peter Govenaires go back to the late 1920s.

Surprised no one has waded in to address the specific questions. Yes. It started with the brass caption in 1982 and 1983, then percussion and visual followed in 1984. I would expect a range of opinions on this... but to compile all that I have heard from testimony of the people involved, there were frustrations with the various limitations imposed on caption judges that pre-dated the innovations to which you refer. For instance, prior to the 1970s, the captions for bugles, drums and M&M were judged entirely in teardown mode. Caption judges assessed "execution", looking for errors and almost entirely limited to deducting the same fraction of a point for each error. There was little they could do to address the three qualitative aspects of errors - tolerance (the dividing line between error and successful execution), severity (how bad/obvious is the error), and duration (how long does the error persist, and how do performers recover). Execution judges also could not consider the difficulty of what was being performed - only whether they perceived errors. Results from one show to another could vary quite a bit from individual judges having different levels of tolerance to error. Several changes were made during the 1970s to start addressing these concerns, but they primarily added "analysis", more judges to give credit for what was being performed. Percussion also had a "degree of excellence" subcaption at one point. But "execution" judging still had the same limitations. The change from teardown to buildup enabled the "execution" judge to become a "performance" judge, free to make and quantify all the subjective assessments alluded to above. All that said, I think there was another change that was at least equally important. Prior to the 1970s, there was very little communication from judges to corps staffs. This underwent a massive transformation, with post-show critiques and recorded commentary becoming standard practice by the 1980s. I prefer to call it "free-form" drill, as asymmetry was not a new thing at all. Drills were only symmetric for a brief period in the 1970s. Prior to that, the rules required you to start on one goal line and finish on the other.

Well, I am quite sure it was not sold illegally. Just to avoid any possible misunderstanding, when I said Blue Devils were "taking over" USBands, I understood that to be a legal, consenting arrangement that was announced publicly... not a hostile takeover.

Any subsequent corps that lawyers can link, or portray as a successor. At this point, you probably cannot bring back Marion Cadets - they had both name and uniform similarities. The whole Erie area is probably banned from starting anything right now, despite having had corps of their own in the past. And forget anything tied to the Bonfiglio family. Surprised they are not dragging Blue Devils into it just for taking over the band circuit.

Apparently, all that matters is whether lawyers will name the new corps as a defendant in a civil suit, rightly or wrongly.

I see no record of 2002 Cavaliers competing in Buffalo.

Actually, it is simple. Simpler than DFTK. Only requires the first two letters.