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Does this mean they'll be replacing their Gatorade with Tang?

Oh gawd... Hurry up June, as now we're reduced to debating the authenticity of distant mountains in uniform advertisements. See what you Corps create in your fanbase with your offseason blackout of real live practices ? We here are now creating offseason mountains out of molehills... literally ( haha!)

What's the point of a forum if you want everyone you disagree with to stop posting? Seems silly to me. Must be the in thing, we are afraid to debate so lets shut it down. What is this, a university commencement?

Must. See. Crossmen. Uniform.

This is MOST EXCITING! How does Soundsport make money for DCI? By having new corps join the activity and their fans buy more tickets.

That was in the Alpha Quadrant. It was actually worse in the Delta Quadrant. http://voy.trekcore.com/gallery/albums/2x07/parturition044.jpg

Now every once in a while someone asks for bold predictions for the upcoming year. THIS is a bold predicition and one I like very much. And in response to Brasso's belief that as a BAC alumnus, I would throw out my hip doing a cartwheel; That wouldn't happen, as I would probably smash my face into the ground in a sad misguided attempt to do a cartwheel. LOVE the prediction though. Eat em up Boston.

Since diaphanous means light, delicate, translucent, very thin, etc. if you had anything to do with that sort of material on a baby you likely had MAJOR problems

+1 Like for use of "diaphanous" on DCP :-)

I just have one question. Will the stripe be put back on Cadets' pants....

These are remarkably bad. Wow. BK has had a wonderful look the past few years, this is a major step in the wrong direction. One of the worst uniform changes I've ever seen.

I know.....a not-for-profit asking for donations. Where do they get the nerve.... \sarcasm off.

I see DCI has just added some new corps to the summer schedule but no one on DCP talks about it. That's positive news, adding 6-7 new corps in one summer. When corps fold DCP kills management. When you add a number of new corps, know one say's a thing!!!

What is your favorite overall Top 12, the year that you like from top to bottom and you can watch over and over? For me it is 1992...you have Cavies first championship, Cadets Perilous Skies, Star's fantastic hornline, BD "When a Man Loves a Woman," Madison and the "City of Angels," and so on...pretty much entertaining from start to finish. Honorable mentions to 1999 and 1989 (just for the Top 6 alone!)

What have I been telling you guys? I see the local high school shows and the amount of people who are there is just like the old days. Granted I live in a high drum corps area.. but still.

I love em. Super classy with a majestic feel.

The guard issue (or lack of it) is simply a case of a corps not having it's act together. Reading and Hawthorne will roll into Wildwood with a more or less complete guard book. They both have for the last few years. Why every corps can't be at least close to complete is a member/staff/admin problem. If any of the others match Bucs/Cabs for completeness I'll be shocked. Some folks don't want to hear that, but it's true.

Yeah... I mean, if you put the stripe back now, it's like saying, "our technique is so good, we wanted to rub it in with these here stripes..." That's pretty ballsy, but definitely not worth the visual score risk.

1992 or 2000 have always been my favorite. Both years are packed with solid shows, and even great shows outside of the Top 12 (Southwind 2000 springs to mind)

The Red Sox are the only group not showing up to play at Fenway this year!

Revival of the glory days? I dont think so, the dynamics nor the world isn't close to being the same. Interest in the activity and maybe more involvement and exposure? That could only be a good thing. Now as I have said before IF OC is to succeed and be respected it needs to be supported, especially with our dollars and attendance. By supporting Bottom to top and any other form of the activity will only strengthen....jmo

Have to chime in here and say that it's not always doom and gloom. In the last week, we had a host school fall through and cancel for the end of June housing a corps for two days. In less than 48 hours (and a stroke of genius on your's truly's part) we found a school, got the board and boosters on board, secured the facilities (NO COST!), have TV scheduled, clinic planning in the works, and the boosters are selling T-shirts of the day as a fundraiser. The key was the percussion tech who pulled it all together. He needs new basses for his line and we hope to raise enough from the clinic, plus a discount from the manufacturer, to pay for them. It's an exception, I admit, but sometimes the Gods look favorably on those who think outside the box and make the goal to take care of all the constituents and what they need. The success surprised even me.

And here's a new DCI.org story about the new Open Class corps for this season: Coastal Surge, Eruption, Golden Empire, Guardians, Incognito, Louisiana Stars, and Watchmen. Guardians and Watchmen performed as SoundSport ensembles last year, while Coastal Surge appeared in exhibition in a few shows.

I think you're right in the bold section, but that's why school administrators aren't good targets for marketing DCI membership. Band directors, on the other hand, should notice that those three kids actually got significantly better during the summer, while everybody else backslid. What kid really practices trombone three hours a day in their bedroom all summer long? I would think it's pretty rare, but that's what you need to actually have a shot at a career (more, really). Drum corps turns your good students into great students. And the band director gets the credit, because nobody at the concert knows or cares what the kid did all summer. And it has zero cost for the band and school. It's all gain, no pain. I think it's always been the same easily solvable problem; the band directors don't know about drum corps. They don't know even that it's a summertime activity designed specifically to dovetail with their programs. Yes, there are many who do know about it, but I think drum corps people assume that band directors in general understand drum corps because some directors obviously do. But I think most directors believe drum corps is some kind of alternative to marching band - the competition, as it were. They literally don't know that it's only weekends and summers. To them, any other band is a thing that causes their members to miss practices and concerts. Now this is really interesting. Why don't they want their kids exposed to competitive bands? Also, is there a name for this "circuit"? I'd like to know more about it. Thanks.

Two Glenn's responding Andy. The two contras in 64 Selden were Paul Auster and my brother Leo. Two ex Skyliners, Paul before and after and Leo after. Bunce loved big sound out of 36 horns. When I joined in 63, I stood on the sideline and could not believe how huge they sounded with 24 horns. He also jacked up the sound in the NY Kingsmen's opening fanfare in 66 with playing the DM onto the field. Yeah, 62 New Haven was a big show. Artie Greig was the DM then.

You are right about the 5.1, it is not really needed for drum corps, unless you like to feel immersed in the crowd noise. Good old stereo 2.0 would suffice. The problem with FN is the sound is mediocre. I assume this is due to compression. What I would really like is a higher definition stereo broadcast, along with HD video. I wonder if DCI keeps the resolution low on purpose, so as to not cannibalize DVD sales. Can't say I would blame them, but I do wish there was an option to pay more for a higher-definition stream.

where are the cool visuals? What is this 1979?!?!

'Have Loved the Bluecoats Percussion playing the last couple of seasons and hope it continues into this season as well.

Anyone have a Crossmen uni picture yet?

I love them. I'm guessing the sash on the corps proper and the apron thingy on the guard will move really nicely since it's a pretty diaphanous material. One of the things that has always bugged me about BD's leg cape is that it's so heavy looking. It just kind of flops. I like BK's much better.

It says these uniforms are awful.

Perhaps one should close their eyes and listen to their music. I did. It was wonderful. When I opened my eyes I saw butterscotch and snowflakes. Listen to the music. What does it say?

They abolished that rule last year or the year before. There used to be a system in place to break ties, especially going to the 3 decimal places. Now two corps can tie again, with no issues.

Well. it's LOST...as in ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tp1bEpmmGMs Get it now? (they need to sneak that into the show or an encore or something)

Sorry looked at the pic (which was in a quote) and didn't click through. Anyway you had Riker in yours. Don't you realize he and his trombone are ruining DCI?

INT has new unis this season as well : http://ak1.ostkcdn.com/images/products/2098918/Deluxe-Chef-Dress-up-Set-L10384341.jpg

BK looks like TNG dress uniforms. BAC looks like something from Dune.

Could've been worse.. how many times have we seen " The Blue Coats " ?

Let me add a little to this. I'm not defending or blaming, but there's some extra info you want. First, they generally do care. They don't "have your money" because there is always the option to exercise a refund, or reverse a charge. It happens, and it's part of doing business. That said, just like baseball, it's not like there's some other league. It's a monopoly, and unfortunately even well intentioned people can be bound by that fact - for better or worse, customer or business. Ask your power company how much they care. :) The other thing is "schedule", etc... No, they don't have a schedule. It's probably 90% done, but if there's something you learn very, very quickly in drum corps land, you do not announce something until it's 100%. Things like "you promoted our show less" or "had we known" or any number of complaints pile up much faster than "they haven't announced yet". Besides, until you can actually buy it, they'll contend (correctly IMO) that it doesn't matter. The annualized subscription gives people about a 3 week window to buy before the first live show... and that's how they like it. With a seasonal activity, anything else would be an epic failure. The odds are of course really, really good you'll see the same basic lineup. However, with the decision to (FINALLY) push out Finals, this year they have to decide whether it's going to continue to be an add-on, or if it's all-in-one. I don't know how it'll go down, but to be fair to them, the schedule has been consistent (late May / early June) for years. The current staff inherited it, and I'm not sure it would be fair to expect them to change it - it works well. (no expiration nightmares for "12 months" near Finals week, etc.) Last thing you should probably know... Customer service outside of live chats is going to non-technical customer service (first level). If you have a technical question, you need to be upfront about that with the details of the technical issue. Non-tech support triages and attempts to help as much as they can. Only actual technical issues get bumped up. This is by design, because most issues post-show aren't technically "diagnosable" after the show. During live shows, if there is a global problem, forget it. The technical team is working to fix it, not chat with you about it. There's only a couple of people doing the technical side at a time. If it's a long wait, the odds are pretty good that it wasn't just you. If you want to ask a technical question to the live group, but don't want to wait, the last 60-90 minutes of a show are the best time. Once everything is working, it's on, or it's off. That's the hardest part of live support. You either have 50 people waiting or one every ten minutes. It's the nature of the beast when you're working with 1's and 0's. Again, I hope this is some neutral help. And no, I have no idea about price or schedule upcoming.

Every year the Cadets march from one dot to another with some straight lines and some curved shapes. Which shapes will they make this year? See, with the right wording and careful omission of any actual information, you can make anyone sound like they aren't doing anything. Blue Devils are innovative, both musically and visually. There isn't really any argument to the contrary that isn't just "I don't like the Blue Devils' shows, so nothing they do should be given any credit".

yea that may be one side of it BUT of course one has to consider writing a show AROUND ALL THIS STUFF...not easy at all if you ever designed a show. NOT EASY

I wasn't sure I was going to mention this, but what the heck - it's relative to this discussion. I'm actually trying to get off the ground a small local drum corps, to fill-in some of the gaps in options for kids 13-18. We're trying to set our season to begin after the end of high school marching, and end before all the May DCI camps, focusing on local parades, civic events, etc., without significant travel or related costs. I have already had talks with one DCI corps about a sort of feeder relationship, and have reached out to a dozen or so local band directors (some in schools that don't even have a marching band option). I have to say, as a sort of connecting link in the so-called farm system that's been discussed here, I've gotten better response and offers of assistance from the DCI side than from the high school marching band side. I will no doubt have to ramp up my attempts to engage them - so far just an email campaign as to HS directors unknown to me - but I wonder how much cooperation I will get at that end, if any.

I wish more corps were ready, including the guards. Watching 16 counts of work at this musical highlight and 64 there gets really old fast. I'm not saying it should be easier work, I just wish the emphasis was more on participation in the winter so they were learning the show along with the hornline. The drumlines have the same winter schedule IE winter percussion but do have some rehearsals during the winter months. Yet they have their line set by the time they join up with the corps. The guards aren't even doing auditions until after WGI is over. There is something about that timeline that seems problematic right there, that they will not be even close to ready by the time of the first show. Just the 2 cents of a former guard person (and reduced to a half penny due to inflation)

Caballeros=one of the coolest and most iconic uniforms in drum corps.

Makes sense. Some show designs on occasion could use a little input from these trained professionals, imo

We did not pick anyone up from Empire. We are about the same size as we were in 2013, only we will have a fulll corps alot earlier than last. We are about a month ahead of where we were last year at this time. Wildwood is still a month away. We will be ready as we were last year. So will Bucs, and so will Fusion. I hope that answers some of your questions.

whoever scores highest wins

The Madison thread delivers each and every year, without fail.

Well, if you look at the "Open Class -- 2014 Programs" thread pinned at the top of this forum, you'll see that all of the corps lately added have in fact been listed here for more than two months. So have two of the three other corps that CSGreen mentions. (I had thought that Louisiana Stars weren't appearing in DCI until next year. I'll add them now.) All of these corps and a couple more were mentioned in a discussion of possible new groups in a discussion in January and February. What about Spirit of Newark? Their website indicates a rehearsal scheduled for next week.

I am sure there will be more talking when information is released. Unless you are on these group's individual facebook pages, or scouring the DCI schedule, you wouldn't know the status change. I am sure DCI is going to an article about them, especially with so many in one year! New growth in Open Class (and in Soundsport, several solid groups it seems)