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I’ve heard some things. In my eyes, the most important thing is the survival of The Cadets.

Just a few things from this thread: Comparing Madison Scouts being male-only to Hooters and Rockettes.... I'm not even sure where to start with that one. One of those three groups is a non-profit youth music group. One of the others is a sports bar that sells beer and sliders. The other is a paid dance group (that also holds both male and female auditions for their main Christmas Spectacular - and as far as I'm aware also for their Rockettes Summer Intensive youth program for those that look to join Rockettes one day - to show they have adapted as well). Questioning why the same wasn't said about all-female drum corps and why nothing is being said now about them: They're gone... The majority of the people happy to see this change in Madison here in 2020 would be happy to see those groups changing... if they were still a thing. But they're gone... Asking why people weren't upset over Crossmen's all-female guard. People WERE upset with them making that change, and rightfully so. Same with Phantom. I had no intention in supporting either group while they were like that, and the way both groups went about it was pretty terrible. Bringing up cymbal lines... comparing gender restrictions to shifting instrument needs.... this is just so bad. Also, it's super ironic to be jokingly screaming about people needing "safe spaces" while simultaneously screaming to have an exclusionary space. Sounds kinda like the triggered snowflakes some of you speak of. Which of you big boys want to go tell one of the talented women joining this year that you do not want them in your group, all for the sake of keeping it 'boys only, no girls allowed'? Anyone want to step up and do it? No? Just want to let rules do it? Want to go tell some of the guys at Spirit, or Boston, or Crown, or BD that they had a lesser experience than you did - all because their groups let women in it and your special super club didn't? Get yourselves together and help this group make it a wonderful season for all of the 2020 Scouts. I do not care what reasons the Scouts had for doing this. What is important is that it is something GOOD. Society moves forward, groups learn and adapt. We can't go back and complain about how past groups didn't receive criticism - we have to view these groups as they are right now in 2020. In the words of someone wise:

Well that seems peculiar. If DCI is really trying to ascertain if YEA still operates the Cadets, might I suggest DCI call Denis Bonfiglio. I'm pretty sure she will answer the call!

she runs the drum corps - YEA is a board of directors they would probably deal with. The drum corps / other groups could be peeled off if need be (if USB etc were sold or dissolved) at least that's the way I would picture it... Doug Rutherford has been VERY quiet after his normally quarterly updates he was providing (BOD) - so I'd think SOMETHING is up. But better to stay quiet until there's resolved "news" to share

The conversation has been above her pay grade in their organization. She is (and should be) focused on the drum corps, not the board room situation for YEA. Others in YEA have been the ones DCI is talking to.

Crown also had more competent leadership and a more experienced staff, especially when the made their major assent in the early 2000’s. CK in all his infinite wisdom and selfprophesizing chose to go the route of pretty much allowing a design team, other than Jenifo of course, to be assembled out of Open Class designers, or people with little to no experience to right the ship this season. Sad to see some still drinking the Koolaid, but that’s life.

I thought they were very open and transparent last summer when they made the announcement that they were going coed because they couldn't attract enough members -- I'm pretty sure that's what they said -- I hope Madison is strong in 2020 too! I don't think they'll make finals - Carolina Crown didn't make top 12 until their 6th season - so we need to be patient with this new World Class corps --

Outstanding analysis! Don’t expect long term fan or financial support from those who have little time invested in either the corps they marched or the activity as a whole. This is a cause and affect of high tuition cost and a non-geographically local membership participation.

I think people still want to hear the natural or mostly natural brass sound even if it has some bass reinforcement from the PA. Regardless, I think there is zero chance of the voting members agreeing to a 100 member limit. Each year there are around 3000 marching members. I'm not sure what the stats are, but my guess would be that half march one year, a quarter two years and a quarter three or more years. It's expensive and college ain't cheap either. Why aren't these people sticking with the events en masse? If they aren't interested enough to pay to see drum corps, there is little chance in growth of the general public beginning to take interest. Increase the entertainment value, increase demand, higher prices for tickets, more butts in seats. But success is now defined basically as surviving a season without using lines of credit much. If they actually began making profits, would the non-profit status be at risk? I really don't think there is a lot of interest in doing more than surviving another season.

In this regard then, While I was at Boston Buffalo Ensemble Rehearsal this past August, They were working a section of the ballad where the Mellos where on side 1 and had a soft melodic line that required delicate playing and soft smooth dynamic transitions. Some of the players started to have blend issues and where sacrificing sonority to get the proper shape. The Box told them to make sure they had their horns pointed at the MIC on the Front Sideline and just play within the Section. Then Off Mic a comment was made to the Sound board to increase the volume off of that mic by two clicks. The next rep, the sound was smooth, emotive and what was intended. Even sitting there at the box right next to the caption heads, you could not ever tell that the sound was not just coming from the Mellos' Left Side but also from the Side 1 Speakers if they didn't point that out. I think many of the issues that arise from the noticeable change from True acoustic to amplified-assisted is the fact that FLO chooses to plant their mics right on the Speakers themselves. And thus the change at the Speaker level is obvious when you're sitting at home watching the Mix that FLO chooses to transmit. I think if FLO changed their standard MIC positions to being halfway up the stands for all shows, you'll see that the corps balance the speakers for the live paying audience, not the people listening to an unchecked balance broadcast by FLO and their incompetence.

Unless designers and staff are kept under tighter control, DCI will ‘’improve itself” right out of existence. It will begin by consolidating into a much smaller group (12?) of competitors who can afford to keep up. No one season model will ever be enough. Every next season will require more new toys and bigger invoices. The whole thing needs to slow down, take a rest.

When I look at corporate finances in the investment world, I'm dubious of the company that has made a profit target by cutting costs. Simply, at some point, the company can't cut any more and the issue of "growth" has to take over. Cutting costs is limited to the amount of "fat" but growing revenues is limitless. There's also a very strong push for corps to create and maintain a financial "safety net" equal to 5% of their annual budget. This is a lofty goal for orgs trying to spend their way into a placement. Spending less than revenue is the only way that's going to happen, but allowing that to happen has to start with changing the mindset of "spending into a placement", and that starts at the top of the adjudication tree.

That's quite literally the question that DCI's Board is trying to ascertain right now.

non-responsive. shotgun mics are only there to capture the full ensemble. 70-80 brass players need no amplification. if you remove them there's no need to worry about whether they're turned on or not. if you can't play FFF with good tone quality, you shouldn't be faking it with amplification. as i have posted many times, just eliminate wireless mics entirely. limit mic placement to "in front of the front-sideline". you can still amplify small ensembles and soloists. you will have far better sound quality at a lower cost (wired is much better sound). and most of the "tech issues" evaporate because corps just won't care about the crowded wireless environment in which they're performing.

"Gets all moist" and "deeply concerned about hearing damage for everyone" are your editorial words. Can't speak for anyone else here... but I'm fine with acoustic loud. Including B-flat loud. Carolina Crown in 2009 and 2013 in particular, Cadets in 2007... those horn lines pinned me to the wall. Among other examples of the any-key era. But I'm not a fan of "artificial" loud. Scrap the sideline microphones... let those young performers play.

All - Many of us (not too fondly) remember the one-season, short-lived series on "Fuse TV" called "Clash of the Corps" Clash of the Corps followed the 2016 Blue Devils & 2016 Cadets on their tour to the DCI World Championships The series felt very flat to most of us - did a terrible job opening up our activity to a broader audience by making the viewers care about the participants or understand WHAT drum corps was about Instead we got corny slow-motion video set to bizzarre music So - it was with trepidation that I checked out Netflix new series "Cheer!" It's an activity I have no personal connection with or big interest in I did know going into it that (like drum corps) the highest level cheer teams were highly competitive The show is everything "Clash" was not It's full of life, really digs into back-stories on the members. You end up walking away from the series "getting" why the activity is so valuable and important to its members Drum corps fans would get it - so I recommend checking it out Perhaps someday a more talented production team will take another stab at "Drum Corps!" https://www.tvguide.com/news/6-reasons-cheer-is-the-first-must-see-show-of-2020/ https://www.netflix.com/title/81039393

Expenses. Its a big topic on this board and many say that DCI costs are spiraling out of control. So I started to look at what is driving cost up through the roof. I started to look at the DCI's 990 to look at what their actual costs and expenses are. Pulling up their 2018 990 here ( https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/362754480/201902739349300235/full ) you can find that in 2018 DCI spent $6,550,694 on Show Expenses (cost of renting facilities) Looking at their calendar they put on 108 shows in 2018 between WC, OC and Soundsport shows. If you average that out, they Spent $60,654 per show for the DCI tour. That's an insane amount of money for a Non-profit organization to put out to put on these shows. And that leads me to think what Can DCI do to bring this crazy amount of Cost down? And the one idea that keeps coming through my head is, the football Field. We are married to a football field as our performance venue and this marriage is becoming so expensive it is killing the organization from within. When if you look at most shows, Corps Rarely go outside of the 15 yard lines and rarely spend much time behind the back hash. Could DCI survive in a smaller venue? Could DCI perform inside the NBA/ NHL Arenas instead of a football field? Looking at the Size of NHL Rink. The regulation size is 200 x 85, But most NBA/NHL Size arenas can easily move the back and side bleachers and easily reach a common space of 210 x 105 Feet. Or what you would know as 15 to 15 and Front Sideline to Back Hash. Now you might ask what does an average Arena Cost to rent for a day? http://rockandrollguru.blogspot.com/2011/03/price-of-concert-breaking-down-where.html $20,000 a Night. If in 2018 DCI rented arenas instead of Football Stadiums the expenses for Show Expenses would shrink to: $2,160,000, a reduction of $4,390,694. Even if you inflate the $20,000 Cost by 50% $30,000 to cover for Security, event staff, Logistics etc.., You would have expenses at $3,240,000. A Reduction of $3,310,694.00. For comparison, Looking at WGI's 990; (https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/311421760/201813129349300016/full) WGI spent $1,635,975 in 2018 on Event Expenses. They put on 77 events some are duplicated so you can 70 events in 2018 ( For comparison WGI is putting on 64 events in 2020) Their average expense was $23,371.07 per event. If you're thinking, Well they cant get as many people in an arena as they can in a Football stadium, you'd be right, If you where to sell one side of the arena as you did in a football stadium most arenas have a capacity of 12,202 for 180° shows https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Airlines_Arena Some are larger, Some are smaller. While the smaller shows are hosted in High School stadiums. The largest HS Stadiums in the country https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/the-largest-high-school-stadiums-in-the-us.html have a seating capacity of 20,000+ but you can only sell one side. But DCI is not in these large stadiums often so you could argue that most of the early season shows happen in locations where the seating capacity is around 5,000 people. So while the maximum number of people that could attend an event would be reduced to about 12,000 the average capacity will be increased to somewhere around 10,000 people for event. There is also the possibility for cities that normally have larger stadiums to have 2 shows one Saturday and Sunday to make sure that everyone wants to see the shows get to see the shows. Reducing Fuel cost and increasing member health as they get to get some serious floor time by going back to the same school. Funny enough that these large Regional NFL Stadiums are the ones that could be pointed too as having the largest impact on these expenses. They also offer performance audiences close to 20,000 people. So the average attendance size goes up. Meanwhile DCI because of the stacked nature of Arenas has more space on the 50, And can increase the amount of "VIP" or high cost tickets. Most of these arenas also have Suites, You can sell suites and club level tickets for a premium something that simply doesnt exist in the average Football Stadium. The next positive, NO WEATHER! No Rain Delays, No 98 Degree heat in Texas after Sundown. 65 Degrees A/C with a cold Beer in hand and with the corps so close you can reach out and touch them. And then the last component. For the individual Corps. While you can with ease field 154 members on a field of this size, you might start to feel cramped. For the corps it might improve the aesthetic to reduce the size for the corps to 100 members. You remove one Bus you remove 54 mouths to feed, and on down and continue the corps budget will shrink. You will still pay the same amount of money to see Blue Devils regardless if they have 154 members or if they have 100 members. With the Cost going down, More corps have an opportunity to compete and because of decreased member size more talent is distributed to other corps, and the overall talent goes up. So I ask knowing all of this, Is the Football Field and being outdoors essential to your enjoyment of Drum corps? If losing the Football Field meant that the activity not only survives but flourishes would you willingly waive goodbye to the Football Field? In my mind I already have.

go for it LOL

DCI has become a total joke. Complain about us dinos all you want, but back then corps fees weren't 2K per year. Why? Well today's instructors (if you want to call them that) are a big reason. They keep proposing rule changes to advance their own creative egos and almost every one of them in some way adds to the cost. From podiums to props to electronics to instrumentation. The kids are just tools for them to advance their minds fantasies. Back in the day we probably weren't as good as today's corps but there were tons more kids involved in the activity. If you want musical performances today's corps are very good, but if you want an activity that has the best interests of youth in mind then yesteryears drum corps was MUCH better.

I could see this. Flo was trying to bust into the Major League Soccer streaming business with DC United and Cincinnati while making overtures to other teams and the league itself. The whole thing was done on promises that they'd be doing specialized content, features, match day things pre and post game, etc. The day of the first game came for Flo to cover and the entire first half was missing because...we never did learn why. It was almost like it was halftime and someone at Flo remembered, "oh yeah, some soccer thing" and hit a switch somewhere. They offered refunds and the like and subsequent games were streamed fairly well. But the additional content and such never materialized. Then completely out of the blue, DC United announced they were ending the contract with one game left on Flo's schedule. DC streamed it for free on their website. No word on any lawsuits regarding 'breach of contract' from either way about that. Flo also had Big Ten network's "BTN Plus" content streaming at one point, now that's back over on its own app an BTN's regular channel is streamed through the Fox Sports Go app. Both of these seem to indicate Flo tried to expand into all sorts of areas and markets of streaming without actually laying out the infrastructure, staffing, and such to make good on their promises (something DCI could have probably told them...) and it's starting to collapse as the 'big streaming players' are leaving those hasty deals. That would prime some company who is ready to do it to hop in there and start sniping particular contracts. Varsity getting in there would make sense. I do wonder if they'd go for WGI before trying to take on DCI and BOA though given that the logistics of streaming from a gym are probably easier than a football field.

I had no recollection of them saying that, so I went back to the announcement on DCI.org. Not one word about needing to attract enough members. Lots of other justification ( principles, diversity, non-discrimination) but nothing about - hey, we’re having trouble attracting members. Actually, had they said just that, I think there would have been a lot less pushback. Because the way they’ve packaged it seems very disingenuous to me.

process? no. interest to be sure they had numbers.....maybe

WC should be. i think they've made it too hard for OC

Actually, DCI requires a roster be submitted by May 31. I assume if your roster is under the count there will be some explanations required. Mike

Madison’s reasons for going coed are critical. If they did want to increase their talent pool, that is fine and it would be a good move. If it is reactionary, either doing something different just to do something different or a fear of not being able to field a corps, it could be problematic. Kilties went coed in 1978 due to recruitment and made finals that year, but it was a last hurrah. We also had some great merged corps such as North Star, Oakland Crusaders, and Seneca Optimists, and of course Crossmen, but only Crossmen survived. As I look back, I wonder if these corps had a vision of what the future would be. I don’t say this critically because that is not how people thought in the 1970’s, but I think it was for survival and after an initial boost, the groups fizzled. what I do not think Madison has done in a convincing way is stated why going coed is a good move or what a vision for a new Madison will be. If you look at a corps that has made the most progress in the past few years, Boston Crusaders, the vision for the corps has been clear for the past five years and you can see the roots of it going back to 2010 or so. For Madison the vision seems to be missing and what we see comes across as a combination of stop gap measures and fighting with alums. I do hope Madison has a good summer. It would be great to see them return to finals, though that may be too big a leap. What I do hope is that by the end of the season, Madison has a plan as they move forward.

Using full corps mics is like plastic surgery on a face.

obviously they didn't want it. 😁

We will just have to "agree to disagree" on that.

i'll tell them do well. i don't care that they added women. the timing is fishy, the BOD has allowed failures to occur, and i love mocking hypocrites....and i use my real name here. big boy enough for you?

no, 8 crappy 16th notes did

Find me a professional musician (brass player) that plays acoustically to large crowds and I'll show you a broke musician. It's simply a part of the idiom now, Volume and projection have an impact on Sound Equality and the complexity of the material allowed to be solo material. Imagine Crown Gabriel's Oboe solo/ solis without proper amplification, Only the people crowding the Front sideline would have heard the delicate nature of much of that solo. Same with the Soloist in Bluecoats show last year, (namely in "Come Together") Had that soloist had to Project to reach the Music judges in the Box he would have had a helluva time trying to get the same quality that he achieved. Also with Sound Reinforcement, Everyone in the audience could hear the detail, not just the people in the line of fire of the physical bell. Live quality playing is the name of the game now, There is little that would convince the corps of putting that sand back in the bottle now.

The snag comes that you're assuming that the same number of tickets will be sold to see a 100 member corps as a 154 member corps. OC vs WC attendance seems to point to that not being the case. If an individual corps is making their finances work, spend away. EDIT: I agree with the above comment that the mindset needs to change. On initial thought, something like a budget cap seems fair similar to a salary cap for football, but then there are the nuances of higher costs in California versus Wyoming and some corps need to travel farther than other corps, etc, etc.

Not exactly. Carolina Gold has been a DCI-affiliated all-age corps for several seasons running. In fact, they would already have gone through the DCI evaluation process once on that account. I believe both are correct. Financial/organizational plans are formulated and submitted to DCI in the fall, IIRC. Then, the spring evaluation confirms they are proceeding according to plan. They take it on faith. Unless a review was triggered for some other reason, DCI would not know if an existing OC corps was below the minimum member count until they see the corps at a contest.

I understand why, but the process takes time.

No there wasnt. The Scouts BOD is 100% incompetent as evidenced by CK's contract extension after 10 years of failure, lies and deceit.

There's not a fan "Applause-O-Meter". Can't really find a way to judge fan appeal other than applause and standing-O's (anyone notice how rare standing-Os are in today's design?). The judges decide and design rules around what the member corps want.

Actually, there was. The Scouts administration/BOD decided to make this change. They are the ones who matter most.

Love the irony that the same crowd who gets all moist reminiscing about "getting my face melted off" by brash, loud G Bugle lines are now deeply concerned about hearing damage for everyone because of the volume.

where was the woke crowd when Crossmen went all female with their guard last year?

no one that matters called on Madison to change

Ok, I'll rephrase - there are no calls from anyone who actually matters for Cavaliers to change, and there's no indication from anyone I know there they've seriously considered the question.

As long as the corps agree to not smuggle their directors out of the country in a Contrabass case...they might even get additional reeds thrown into the deal.

Some things are meant to be done on a field. That’s why Arena Football went belly-up. Get rid of the props, stop changing uniforms every year, cut down on the number of instructors (would anyone notice?), hire “drill writers” instead of “show designers”, and do crowd pleasing as opposed to designer pleasing shows. Changing venues and quadrupling down on all the decorations is not the answer.

Heh. I liked the first two cheer movies because they’re was so much carryover in the dynamics of cheer and band. While I was never into cheer, the moments of traditions, camps, social pressures, passion, creativity, performances, team building, resilience, being largely misunderstood by those outside of the activity, etc. were all instantly familiar.

it's something. "Snarky" might be a good word in the finale of this Cheer series, which I saw last night - the producers were not allowed to film the championship in Daytona - the activity is covered by a streaming service pay-per-view and all the families that couldn't make the championships were back home logging in on their phones/computers. The streaming service "Varsity" is akin to our "FloMarching" service - while the cheer circuit (akin to DCI) also heavily controlled the activities message. Neither seemed particularly pleased with this netflix series the other main message of the finale was "what's next" for the performers as this was the end of the road - there is no professional next step (other than to become a tech/instructor. It all sounded very familiar highly recommend for anyone interested. If you're not - that's fine. But the parallels with Drum Corps are stark and illustrative carry on!

Brrr, it's cold in here.

i'd rather walk on my lips than watch either

The Hawthorne Caballeros are thrilled to introduce their 2020 battery staff! Kirby Marino – Battery Coordinator Kirby is a percussion educator, adjudicator, and arranger in New Jersey. He started his marching career at Phillipsburg High School in Phillipsburg, New Jersey. He then went on to march with the Raiders Drum and Bugle Corps (2012, 2013) […] View the full article

Crazy how soon this happened but I think since Bluecoats 2016 show, Stanbury are on the cutting edge of costume design and Greg Logola will provide a cutting edge design compared to other offerings from Michael Cesario and FJM and Band Shoppe. One only need to look at the very literal take on the Goliath Band Shoppe customes last year to see that to reach a higher taste level a change was needed. I'm sure that take won't be made public but it was on people's minds in the activity. At least in my circles..

Frank was special and not just in name. So often he was bigger than life and yet in his own often quiet or colorful way. I remember one time I was invited out to Cavies' winter camp. Adolph told me Frank would pick me up at O'Hare Airport. My plane arrived late in snowy Chicago and I walked out of the building to the appointed spot. I was used to seeing Frank in tee shirt and shorts (summer tour gear.) There he was in his police uniform with his police cruiser. He put me in the front seat (to make sure no one had the wrong idea.) But in the short ride from one side of the airport to the Rosemont school, an alarm came across the police radio about an attempted bank robbery. As Frank's was the nearest car, he turned on the siren and the bubble light and off we went. He had me cowering under the dashboard when we drove into the bank lot as he exited with a drawn gun. No shots were fired, but I didn't need any bullets. He had much fun sharing with the corps after camp how I was cowering for a false alarm. May St. Peter grant him a special seat in the heavenly convoy and may he have the reward of all his great deeds for the Cavies, his family, Rosemont, and so many others. We lost a very good man.