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We've lost our ability to disagree. Everyone toggles over to victim status the first time someone disagrees with them. "Mom! He's being mean to me..". It's gotten really old. Everyone wants to be in a grievance group so politicians can pander to them. Well, good luck with that. All you will ever get from the politicians, promises notwithstanding, is crumbs. Better to stand on your own two feet and stop playing the victim.

Contestant Hila Saxer mentioned on today's episode of Jeopardy that her family members are huge drum corps fans, and stated that a California corps, the Santa Clara Vanguard won this year's championship.

Nobody said a mean thing about "the kids." People are discussing a potential new trend. That's it.

Yes, everybody. Hold off on all opinions until finals. John D, time to shut down DCP until August. Congrats to the mods on the well-deserved break. I assume it'll be with pay.

Wow, 14 pages on a marching band show, using props, in a drum corps forum.

scores influence kids less than things they see viewed as cool. Kids raved over Bluecoats last year even though they were not a serious contender. Kids crapped on the Cadets many years before they dropped out of the top spot. Why? The shows weren't seen as "cool". For 2 decades kids raved about Madison when they won 2 titles. Crown has 1 win, but from 2008 to the present ( tho less so this past year) kids fanboy'd them like they were N'Sync. scores mean more to fickle adults than to kids

Absolutely true. We would not be here if music educators had no influence over what the students think is "cool". I wish you were correct here, too. But the advice I keep hearing (probably from you at some point, too) is "follow the money". The manufacturers of musical instruments and the ever-expanding array of related equipment are not just swinging the pendulum... they are tipping the clock over. Follow the money. They have turned drum corps into their own traveling salesmen. DCI might as well change the motto to "Marching Music's Manufacturer Showroom". The back stands at DCI events are wallpapered with advertising banners, bought and paid for by these companies - oh, sorry - "corporate partners". So is anything DCI puts on the web. Corps identified as important to marketing plans are offered enough in the way of discounts, rental deals, donations, etc., to get them to use (and advertise) their product - or lobby for product introduction to drum corps via rule changes. Numerous individual corps staffers, and even judges, are paid "endorsers" for specific manufacturers/products. How this is not a disqualifying conflict of interest for judges, I will never understand. I do understand how all this causes the proliferation of such equipment in the activity. Once upon a time, drum corps was a budget-conscious activity run by adults who were mindful of the extremely limited financial sponsorship their activity had, compared to scholastic music. Proponents of the sweeping equipment changes can congratulate themselves for increasing that sponsorship... but at considerable cost.

Thinking more of a 2007 "On Air" vibe. Possibly one of the most underrated shows ever.

Lance from the top rope. Delivering the atomic elbow. I love it!

FYI #1: I posted this and whitedj2016 gave it a laughing face. I PM’ed asking why he/she thought it was funny and said it came across as ignorant at best. Received no explanation and got called an ###. FYI #2: My late wife (7 months now) had a seizure condition and know what it is like to see someone suffer when crap hits the fan. Taking time off before I say something about gaining maturity or empathy for others that gets me banned. Life is too short to deal with people like this.

Cue the Billy Preston music.

if they called you an ###, hit the report button

Man.... I hear that, Jim. Never told anyone publicly about this until now... but late fall of 2007, a couple of weeks after Barbara got home from the rehab center following her stroke that summer, she suffered a significant seizure. Resulted in another trip to the ER. Scared the hell out of me... I thought I was gonna lose her right then and there. The folks who know me best know I like to joke around, keep it light, as much as possible. But stuff like this... it's not funny. On any level. You have shown remarkable restraint with the person you're dealing with here.

I'm a 16 year old who got into drum corps just 2 years ago. I really wish there was more of a mix of these contemporary, prop filled shows, as well as more traditional shows. They are two very different types of entertainment, and I dont want either of them to be abandoned. But I'm also not going to act like I know what's best for the activity, because im still very new here.

Wow. You couldn't be more out of touch on this if you tried. (IMO, anyway.) And those kids are not as mindless as you make them out to be ("Hey, that band got a really high score. That must mean their show and everything in it is cool!"). They require little assistance from the "adults" to tell them what they think is cool. Often times, what they think is cool isn't even stuff that's being talked about in this thread. As for the rest, I'm curious. When, in all of competitive drum corps history, has a design trend taken the activity someplace new and then everybody decided to go back to the way it used to be? Has it ever happened? I'm trying to think of a major shift in design over the decades that was jettisoned in favor of what came before and I'm coming up empty. Anyone? Bueller??

But the obligatory rolling around on the ground and faux emoting, sure is super awesome.

What a great show this year by Tarpon Springs. I wonder who in DCI will be first to bring this to the field in 2019.

As Jeff pointed out (probably unintentionally), there are far, far more significant expenses for drum corps to pay for, for a much longer time each year, than to spend money on props and trinkets that are not WHOLLY worth-while to the member experience, as found and described in most corps' mission statements. Even putting aside the requirement that the performers themselves moves their sets around (ahem, "simultaneous", right?), how is the very use of the screens an enhancement of the members' experience? Happy Days, Fonzi, and the shark come to mind.

The days of rehashed shows are done and PR needs to stay away from that trap.

Bonus. She's an ASL interpreter. The 'mostly deaf' person I am who uses an array of technology to hear drum corps enjoyed her presence.

The band I taught does a mix of parents with kids helping. It really makes a nice feeling of cameraderie and gets parents psyched.

John is actually going to gjve us TWICE our normal salary during the break!

Your last sentence shows extreme maturity for your age. But, you obviously need to get out more because, apparently, you're disconnected from the reality of H.S. band kids (as if that's possible!). Kudos to you.

i just watch it on Flo. far cheaper

Hey, we have to find something to argue about in the offseason.

BOA programs like this one have been well over 6 figures for a couple of decades now. They rely on serious hard core find raising. In some ways, the show is rather intriguing in some rather ironic directions- the signs saying that people see what they want to see or what they want them to see.... and at times ending up distracting the viewer totally from the fact kids are actually performing something even though they're staged to be clearly seen. I'd thought of something like this.... but to be used in an extremely comedic way. Flashing "APPLAUD NOW" at certain points.... And flashing other pithy comments like "Obligatory Body Moves NOW!", and maybe even a "COKE REFRESHES!" or some fake sponsor message like on Prairie Home Companion. As for effect..... How does one call it? At least BA's go-buggies were something that the performers had to perform with. They had to drive those things in formation... cue them.. and play while riding atop the daggone things. Something to take into consideration for sure. Loaded question- do the displays try and take the numbers out of the hands of the performers in one way or another? Serious question, and I think debatable. Would the program still have solid content without relying on the displays as a crutch? I'd hope so. At the BoA level, I'd hope and think adjudicators would call the Emperor stark naked if that was what they believed was happening.

Interesting thread. Lots of perspectives here. Some well-said stuff, some crazy stuff, some funny stuff, some "have you been listening or reading at all???" stuff. Sounds like Thanksgiving dinner with my family. Or just standard DCP. If a band or corps has the money to spend on props, video screens, jet packs, whatever (personally, I'd like to see jet packs someday... ) then hey... have at it. It's up to an organization as to how it uses its resources. Heck, if I hit last night's lottery, my corps would have Ruth's Chris chefs running our food operation. LOL However... (isn't there always a however???? LOL)... my concern would be, and has been, the "arms race" aspect to all this. The pressure to do this stuff to keep up, even if your group doesn't necessarily have the resources to do so. I'm not sure there's an answer to that, and I doubt there's a one size-fits-all "solution" to it. But it is a concern.

In my opinion, you're being a little too sensitive. The comments have been mostly complimentary or neutral on the show and no one has attacked the kids. What's DCPI? Haven't seen anything positive or somewhat informative? Then you need to spend more time here than you have in the past; you're obviously not paying enough attention. Budget < IS > part of the discussion and, in the opinion of some, is a key consideration in an activity that runs, not on public school budgets, but on the ticketed value it provides and corporate/charitable support is attracts. Hard to just ignore the elephant-in-the-room cost in the context of actual drum corps budgets.

Interestingly, in most orgs, the two aren't connected and the pressure for designing around props and gimmicks is coming from the designers because they know, from their meetings with DCI, what it will take to win. There's never enough money, period. It doesn't matter how much the corps makes, it's never enough. That's exactly why performance adjudication should not be influenced by the dollars spent on a show designed around props and A&E..

Quiet is good. At least compared to the three-ring circus of recent years. LOL.

leave it to DCPI to have a bunch of old farts rip apart high school kids---this post is one reason DCPI is such a horrible place to come. I dont know why I do it hoping to actually see anything positive or even somewhat informative. I watched the show live--was great--was not distracting to anyone over the age of 5 -- they sounded great too and have a real shot at winning. If nothing else it was pretty original and no first try at a new direction is never perfect no matter which band or corps you think is the best in the universe, but they are experimenting. Budget, Ill give you because that couldn't be cheap but people come on...you almost all always sound so sour about EVERYTHING here. Your mothers should have taught you, if you dont have something nice to say..... blow up all you want at this response because every time I come here I see this kind of crap that keeps me away for a good few months at least--hope you keep bringing new DCPIers in somehow tho--its here truly to support the marching arts which it needs especially now

Unfortunately I don't see this with the current staff. To me the top 5 are on another level performance and design wise.

Oh yes band parents squealing is now the deciding factor in quality of product lol

It wasn't my first thought, but I do have to wonder if a drum corps that can afford to rent and transport these for a season might better use those assets to provide better conditions for the members' experience. For instance, how many housing nights in a hotel before finals do those buy? How many days of catered meals from local stop-overs while on tour? How much better design and instruction can PC or Academy or Blue Stars buy with the assets they have to spend on props just to get GE. It seems to me that, with a modification in judging criteria that directs attention away from props and more on music education and execution, bands such as Grove City and drum corps like The Academy or PC can present a better challenge to the big shots in both activities without "selling out" (my termj) to the arms race "thing of the year". My next thought was the business structure to own and lease vs. lease and, while surely feasible for a group that has the wherewithal to buy, the trick is to make it available for the activity. Thoughts on that should probably come from a new thread.

Would that require a separate screen for the apostrophe?

Hopefully no one.

One advantage of delivering information via screen rather than via narration is that it doesn't cover up the music. (Naturally I expect bands and corps will do both, thus rendering that point moot.)

in 3.5 minutes, 45 seconds of horn line and maybe 1 set of marching and playing. impressive. edit: and I don't think the screens really add anything to the show, but I bet the judges love them.

Good luck getting the CDL as my dad had one for years as he was a mechanic and heavy equipment operator in the Army. And yeah no registration sticker on the license is only about 2 years old for PA autos. Not sure if commercial vehicles stopped at the same time. lol friend of friend quit her job and wanted to drive school bus in PA. She didn’t get the job as she told me “do you know you need a CDL to drive school bus”? Just looked at her, said “yeah” and walked away. She is a pain so didn’t say how I knew that because of dad.

My girlfriend is a high school director. She was moved into the job because she was a very good middle school director. Administrators think everyone's end goal is to have a high school job. It is not. She wishes she could have her middle school job back because she prefers teaching the younger kids and frankly because high school kids think they already know everything and can be extremely difficult to deal with. Additionally, no high school program anywhere can truly be great without top notch middle school feeder programs.