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I especially dislike the open wound with the large intestine hanging out.

I have the feeling that no matter what I say, some people here (some being perhaps overstated - "a few" might be more accurate) will find all reasons to find conflict in interest. It's such a small activity to compare to collegiate and professional sports.

Something that I wholly never expected to have happen to me happened last year. Blue Stars made me cry. I became familiar with Blue Stars from their break-back-into-Finals late-aughts/early-teens run. Stuff like The Factory, and Houdini, and ReBourne. Fantastic stuff, but going more for the brain than the heart. Which very much has its appeal--it's one of the reasons I enjoyed Boston's late-aughts/early-teens run (Neocosmos and The Core of Temptation and Thy Kingdom Come). But it's a different sort of appeal. But this year's show for them...the red plumes with these uniforms just worked, like "oh, this is exactly what the Blue Stars should be" in a way none of the previous uniforms I saw them in did. The music worked very well--Chairman Dances, despite the consternation about it on here when it was announced, worked exactly the way they wanted it to work. The visual aspects with the blueprint worked well. The ballad was fantastic (especially the way guitar was incorporated into the falling action). And then they got into that block, and sang. And that was all, she wrote. The *best* show I've seen them do is still probably Houdini. But last year's is my favorite.

Didn't know you were old enough B for the early stages of dementia! Once you learned of my attendance this year, you offered a seat at one of the tables the group you attend with will be reserving, and I offered to buy the table I'm sitting at a round. Our communications were handled via PM. 20 push-ups please.

I had no idea about the different venues - thanks for the info!

But DCI has in the past, made comparisons to " collegiate and professional sports " when it fits their purpose. It was, afterall, DCI itself that attempted to align itself with sports by ageeing to go on ESPN Sports for their televised Championships, bringing on pro and college athletes, coaches, etc to its broadcast, utilizing legendary sports announcers ( Curt Gowdy ) and hooking up DCI percussionists to a heart monitor to compare the pulse, rate, etc to that of college and pro athletes, and a myriad of other comparisons that DCI has made for itself for the public to compare and see this activity as a competitive " sport " But... thats all beside the point here, imo. I responded to the poster above that brought up the conflict of interest issue. I agreed with his observations, and his good questions in his comments for us to think about, and added my own comments in support of his questioning regarding the appropriateness of DCI's long standing position of the lack of transparancy and the avoidance of the appearance of the very real conflicts of interest that continues to reside in DCI. Its just my opinion, assessment, observation. Please don't take my comments personal, as my comments on this are not about you at all.

Perhaps something isn't quite clear with me. Can you please explain the conflict of interest and how it has affected and influenced recent performance results? Thanks!

The movement of WGI finals to various U.S. cities was, of course, before the advent of WGI percussion, and now WGI winds. With the establishment of a home office in Dayton, the WGI staff pretty much camps out at UD arena for two weeks to get the championships all done. To do the same for another city for that length of time would probably be a gruesome undertaking for the not for profit that they are.

I'll bring lunch and dinner.

Quoting my own post, Dayton '15, page 3, post #30, "I have always been confused by the Conflict of Interest dimension of judging in our activity, who taught whom back when and judges now, whose kid marches where and the parent/relative is judging them, who teaches at what school and works M-F with which teacher who is teaching this competing unit on the weekend..." For years I have been trying to get the DCI BoD to revisit this question. With the DCI managers meeting in Dayton this Friday and the BoD members of all DCI corps meeting in Chicago on Saturday, it is an apt time to raise the matter again. If he who is the consultant to the corps for entertainment, show design, and matters of show judging and protocols is also designing uniforms for SOME of the units, is this not a Conflict of Interest too? GE Visual judges (and now all GE judges since they can cross captions and sheets to make pertinent comments) and all visual judges do NOT per se judge uniforms but they are influenced by the presence of what makes the corps look(s) good as the corps enfleshes the show design. In other words, judges don't judge dot sheets or computer programs but rather human beings and what they look like that adds, subtracts, influences, and showcases the flow of the show in the movement and visuals done. Having judged at some levels and consulted on more, I know that judges do recognize the same by comments made at critiques and in conversations, not overtly on the sheets or tapes themselves. But a horrible look, whether by uniform or prop or flashflag, does inhibit the best score a corps receives. And if the same person is making the designs of the uniforms that that these corps wear and these human judges judge, isn't the ethics less pure than what the activity should be... or do we have to wait for robots to judge? Corps use tighter standards in allowing who and who does not volunteer, get cited for donations or contributions, who is allowed to tour and who is not...merely to avoid undue bad press. Why are uniforms exempt from the same high standards by enmeshing the two in one personality in selecting judging panels and what the corps wear? I am certainly not saying anyone has crossed a line. I am saying that for the good of the whole activity, there should be a Berlin Wall separating the two for the sake of propriety. Not all smoke means fire. Sometimes it is just fog. But if the fish smells, I wouldn't eat it. My beef is not with the Seattle Cascades' uniform as given in this thread nor even with the designer with whom I worked and travelled for several seasons and know and presume to be a good man. I am talking about a principle. Shouldn't the activity hold itself to the highest standards? I am perplexed at this exception. To the OP my apologies if this seems to veer too far from your thread intentions. Mods, if you want to make it a separate thread for comments and discussion, I don't object.

Madison Scouts

I love it.

Looks like BDB: The Next Generation, but with a really stupid hat.

On The Road With The Corpsdashians

I feel like these selections so far are just imitations of last year's source music? The Bon Iver resembles the Vienna Teng and Dense resembles Uffe's Woodshop. Unfortunately so far, they don't sound as cool as their Tilt counterparts. Though I'm sure the audience would love to see Tilt 2, repeat shows aren't that fun. And maybe I'm completely wrong, so we'll just wait and see. In other words, I'm not fan girling yet.

Saying RCC is "Blue Devils winter program" is like saying Rhythm X is Bluecoats winter program. Neither of those paints an accurate picture and does a disservice to the folks that make each of those programs what they are today.

I was a finalist on this show with a band called Denver & The Mile High Orchestra. This thread makes me giggle.

If I remember correctly, members of the Blue Devils A corps helped provide some of the soundtrack, and also make some cameo appearances in the movie (in street clothes).

Bob Barker died (OK, that's not exactly dumb but for a rookie on their first drum corps tour it's at least a little bit odd to hear & then realize it is seemingly somewhat of an activity-wide tradition)

For crying out loud, can Spirit do anything without being criticized?

The "you can get more out of cymbals by putting them in the pit" argument has always been spurious. That can be said of the entire drum corps minus the guard. You can always get more musicality out of percussion by making them stationary, giving them more instruments and so for. You can get more out of brass by sitting them down in chairs and letting them play concert instruments. Drum corps has always been about adding a marching and visual element to the music. Why march at all if you're just going to say "you can do more with ___ by putting them in the pit"? That can be said of anything.

Hmmmm.... however to be consistent, you have to also admit that your reasoning has to apply to any instrument; because there is no ‘musical’ reason, for example, for nine snare drummers to march around on the field and those snare drums could also be easily performed by people in the front ensemble.